The Die is Cast
by Commissar Rasher
Summary: The battle for Hoover Dam has been won, the NCR repulsed and the Legion retreating in shame. Now a one time courier must take the reins of the Mojave and forge a new nation out of the scattered communities of the wasteland. But despite his best intentions, war is on the horizon. And war, well...
1. Placing Bets

War… War never changes.

Since the first tribes of primitive humans joined together to survive, war has been inevitable. By separating themselves from each other they made conflict a certainty, competing with each other for land, for food, for survival. Tribe against tribe, kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, the words may have changed, but war has been our constant companion.

As the flame of human civilization began to gutter and die, the world's resources all but spent, humankind once again turned to warfare to sustain its great nations for just a little longer, desperately trying to kindle their dying flames with conquest, throwing their neighbors onto the pyre to ward off the coming darkness.

Just as their distant ancestors fought over hunting grounds and natural shelters, did the men of the modern world fall upon each other over oil fields and uranium mines, each conquest serving as the fuel for the next campaign, consuming the resources they had fought so hard for in order to fuel the next conquest. The flame of humanity burned brighter and faster as the world spun on towards a greater war.

The war was fought for the most pragmatic of reasons, for the most basic of resources needed to sustain their modern way of life, but in the end the conflict they waged to sustain themselves made itself irrelevant. For two hours humanity's flame burned brighter than ever, scorching the world in brilliant light and flame. Then, spent at last, the world dimmed and went out, nothing but embers and ghosts now. The flame so carefully nurtured since the first human stood upright had been blown out, ten thousand years of history nothing but smoke on the wind.

Their lesson unlearned, the survivors emerged to view their shattered world, tiny embers catching light again in the endless darkness, clinging stubbornly to life. When they met, they traded and allied, or exploited each other as they always had. The world had changed around them, but they had not. In time they re-forged themselves, formed tribes, and then nations, organized and prepared, and in time they marched off to war.

They fought for the same reasons they always had since the dawn of the species, for land, for food, for fuel, and sometimes simply because they could not live in peace with another, so different were they. For his ideals of unity and peace, the Master would form an army of mutant warriors and menace the wastelands. For a better hope of survival the New California Republic would form together and march on a campaign of expansion. For the secrets of pre-war knowledge, the Brotherhood of Steel would send splinter factions to Chicago, Washington D.C. and Texas. For unity through conquest, a simple man would brand himself Caesar and form a legion of slave soldiers. For the ideals of a dead nation the Enclave would launch strikes from their hidden places of power, and plot to unmake the world so they could forge it anew.

The flags changed, the borders, the justifications. But war has been a part of humankind since our beginning, and it carried on just the same, its spirit unchanged by centuries of time and the scouring of the world in flame.

Even the Mojave, all but untouched by the great firestorm thanks to the vision of its self-appointed guardian Mr. House did not live on unscathed, and soon the harsh desert sands drank deep of blood as great armies clashed over its resources, population, and their own ideals.

From the east came the great Legion, the charging bull of fanatical slave warriors, a rogue military in search of a nation worthy of its fierce determination, coming to occupy and enslave, driven by ideology and utter devotion to their leader. From the west marched the ponderous hammer of the NCR, the bear greedy for the spoils of the old world, powerful but sluggish, tearing itself apart as base greed betrayed their high ideals.

For years the two monolithic nations clashed and tussled, spilling blood that stained the sands and desert stones red. But in the end it was not great armies, nor vast resources, nor the will of nations that decided the fate of the Mojave, or the glittering jewel of New Vegas. That decision fell to a single man, not a president, not a dictator, not an executive, but a humble wanderer.

Vegas had always been a city of fate. A place where the rich could lose everything, and the destitute could become kings, where a spin of a wheel or a roll of the dice could rewrite destiny, change a man's fate. A hundred chances, probabilities and informed guesses all came together to place the fate of the Mojave and all who survived there in the hands of one man, who held it all as easily as he did a poker chip.

The right man in the wrong place turned the conflict on its head, breaking the tips from the bull's horns and sending it stampeding back eastward. The bear had been stung and tricked, and wandered back to its cave, confused when its prize had been snatched away. The spirit of the old world had been put to rest, his position replaced by a child of the new world.

Now from within the glittering spire of the Lucky 38 that one man, a courier who had made his message heard by all the world, was faced with the prospects of governing his newly founded nation. The shining lights of the New Vegas strip, still open for business through the nuclear war, and its recent conquest, glittered and flashed below like a sea of gemstones reflecting the fires still burning amidst the wreckage of warfare.

Troubled lay the brow that wore the crown, for as he studied the signs and portents that lay before him, he knew what to expect. New Vegas, like El Dorado, was too tempting a target to be ignored forever. War was on the horizon.

And war… War never changes.

XXXXX

Alaric Reynolds sat in his office within the Lucky 38. He was a young man, Not even thirty, and handsome in the traditional sense. His black hair was neatly trimmed and styled back, his cheeks clean shaven with a neatly groomed goatee and moustache combo, his piercing blue eyes roaming over the desk before him as he examined the reports laid out there. His skin was normally the healthy tan of the wasteland but now bathed in the unhealthy green glow of the terminal screen as he worked late into the night.

Logistics compilations, intelligence reports, progress updates from engineering projects. At least what little projects were being undertaken at the moment. It had been almost three weeks since the battle at Hoover Dam, three weeks since he had sent the Legion scurrying home and politely betrayed the NCR to declare himself sovereign over Vegas.

The dam was secure, an army of Securitron robots preventing anyone from intruding, but lacking the manpower to operate the facility it had been shut down, the power for the strip was now coming from the Helios One power station. He smiled, throwing the idiot Mr. Fantastic out on his ass had been one of the true joys of his new position. He had left the far more capable Ignacio Rivas in charge of the facility. He had also dispatched an extra strong Securitron force to secure it, knowing well the Brotherhood was still obsessed with the power plant, and might try to retake it.

He frowned, the Brotherhood worried him. Not a peep since the battle at the Dam, they had marched out at his request, fought well despite their tiny numbers, and then rushed home as quick as they came. Now weeks of dead silence, it worried him, he did not like the thought of an army of power armored soldiers coveting the technological treasures of his new domain. Still, they were a problem for another day.

New Vegas itself was secure, his robotic legions and good relations with the various local groups had seen to that. The Kings kept Freeside stable, Westside chugged along as it always had, stable and happily independent. The Followers had their work cut out for them but his good standing with them kept them from being too mad at him, especially after he'd put them in charge of power distribution. That kind of big humanitarian project, with promised funding from him once he had the chance, was something that appealed to them, bringing light to the wasteland, it was a big step towards ensuring their survival in the longer term.

Food wasn't too much of an issue, the sharecropper farms had been quickly taken over and tended by Vegas residents and what farmers had decided to stay. Most NCR citizens had fled the region, assuming him to be an enemy of the NCR, but he had taken no action against them, aside from booting them out of their military bases. Alaric sighed, he had liked Colonel Hsu, sending the good man away in disgrace was not something he enjoyed, but he would not tolerate a large military base on the doorstep of his city. And it sent a message that needed to be heard, Vegas would not be annexed, this was not some paltry little wasteland town, this was a sovereign nation that bowed to none.

Still, there were a significant number of NCR civilians living within the city, and it was understandable that some local elements would take advantage of the chaos to get in their revenge at the people who had imposed on them for so long. The crackdown on such behavior was quick, examples had been made, the attacks declined to tolerable levels. Far from ideal, but these were far from ideal times. Many NCR citizens had flocked to Freeside, where they were safe under the King's watchful eyes. He's have to reward that man in some way, some way that didn't damage his pride, he was a valuable ally in the immediate surrounds and he appreciated the good work the man did.

The economy had taken a bit of a hit, Vegas' main customers had been the NCR and with them understandably soured to the Strip's charms they would likely be facing a bit of a recession soon. He'd had a quick chat with the management of the casinos, convincing them to lower prices on the non-gambling entertainments, it was worth it to increase national morale. Well, he'd talked with the management of the two casinos he didn't directly own, and then again he'd personally installed one of the other owners. It was a short talk.

Vegas was secure, what truly worried him was the surrounding countryside. The Legion had been driven off, the Fiends and the Powder Gangers broken so the only survivors were a few scattered bands, most of the bigger threats were gone for the moment, but it was chaos out there. A lot of towns had been hard hit by the Legion, the fool Oliver had stationed the vast majority of his force at the Dam and there was often little or nothing to oppose the Legion as it swept across the wastes, hitting targets as they pleased.

He had used his mechanical army to soften the blow as much as he could, but the Legion had numbers and most of his forces were tied up at the Dam, it had been a messy situation. A lot of people had died, people who didn't deserve to die, but this was war. Maybe if the NCR hadn't put a glory hound idiot in charge of the Mojave they would have lived, nothing he could do about it now.

There was a lot to be done in the days ahead. He played a high stakes game, and if he lost then it would mean a lot of people were going to die. With a final tired sigh, the sovereign of New Vegas retired for the evening.

The next day was bright and clear, with the sunlight streaming in through the great windows of the revolving lounge atop the Lucky 38, like a huge roulette wheel atop the spire. Magnificent, comfortable, broken, it was a fitting symbol of the city. Dressed in a black suit, Alaric was seated at a large round table over breakfast, surrounded by some of his most dear and trusted friends.

Veronica was taking the opportunity to wear a nice dress, she had amassed quite a wardrobe of them since his takeover and looked quite nice in them, though it was unusual to see her without a deadly gauntlet strapped to her arm. Boone was dressed simply, as he often was, fatigues with no unit markings. Alaric was sometimes worried about his friend, turning against the NCR might have been hard for him, but he seemed loyal to Vegas now, the quiet sniper's feelings often difficult to gauge. Raul was wearing a workman's jumpsuit, since the battle he'd been helping repair some of the old systems around the city. Arcade was back in his labcoat, power armor wasn't exactly good morning wear.

"So, you want to create an army?" Cass asked, the woman in her comfortable jacket and jeans. "Are the killer robots not enough for you or something?"

The sovereign of New Vegas smirked. "The Securitrons are a formidable force, but they cannot be our only tool to defend this city. Their numbers are limited, and as of yet we cannot build more. And while they are powerful they cannot go everywhere, they need smooth terrain to move, and their size makes it difficult for them to enter and exit many buildings. Put simply they cannot fight in all the same situations that humans can."

Boone nodded. "Robots are tough, but not flexible. They can't do the same things a soldier can, they can't be stealthy or discreet, or use weapons they aren't built with. Still, raising an army is no small task."

"I agree, my friend." Alaric admitted, cradling his coffee in his hands, looking out at the wastes through the wall of windows. "The Boomers are a decent start, well trained, loyal and numerous. But they lack… discipline. And they are not numerous enough to form an army that can patrol and police the entire Mojave. Besides, their loyalty is to Nellis, not Vegas. They're a very useful asset especially with that bomber of theirs, but we can't rely upon them to be the backbone of our army, we need to make something new." He passed out some clipboards with notes printed on them, he'd spent the past several days drawing the up.

"To my untrained eye." Arcade began as he flipped through the notes. "It would seem that you're emulating Caesar a little bit." His voice was not judging, but it was a little hard.

"Caesar was a monster, but he had some good ideas. Most specifically, he knew how to ensure loyalty in the ranks." Alaric countered. "We take recruits, volunteers, from all around and we mix them up, put them in uniform and train them to standard. Then we station them around the Mojave, put them on patrol. They'll be part of the Vegas Army, not just from any town or settlement. We need to ensure they're loyal to the region as a whole, not just dedicated to defending one town or another."

Boone nodded. "Makes sense, if you had an entire squad from Goodsprings, they'd never want to leave it. Still, big project, you need weapons, uniforms, training."

Again the city's ruler nodded. "Exactly, it's a massive undertaking. First off we'll need to establish some militia units, give them a little help to make the towns stabilized. The robot army is a great asset but they can't be everywhere, and if the towns can see to their own security then it frees up that force to deal with threats that might encroach on the borders. If you'll take the position Boone, I'd like you to be in charge of organizing the militia, and then the army."

The normally cold sniper was visibly surprised, one of the rare flashes of true emotion showing through his cold exterior. "Me? I'm not sure that I'm the right man for the job." He said, always modest and reserved. Thankfully Alaric knew how to coax him out of the walls he put up.

"You're exactly the man for the job. You have the training, the experience, the right mindset for organizing it all. Plus you'll be able to ensure that the project is properly managed, you know more than anyone what can happen when red tape gets in the way of an army's functioning. It's a pretty high calling, I'll understand if you don't want to do it, but I'd be grateful, the Mojave would owe you a lot, so would its people."

He waited, watching, as Boone mulled it over. The man needed a purpose, he had fought first for revenge, then for pragmatism. Without the threat of the Legion to keep him fighting he had no reason to carry on, he might have just wandered off. But to be in charge of keeping the Mojave safe, that was the kind of cause he could throw himself into.

"Still not saying this is a good idea, but I'll give it my best shot." The sniper said, getting the same look in his eye that he had when he sighted down on a Legion officer.

"Excellent, Yes Man can fill you in on the details of individual settlements and any threats we know about, for now just worry about getting recruits in the field. But you're not wrong, we need a lot of supplies and resources to field an army. Raul, we need guns, lots of guns. And uniforms, that means we need a manufacturing base. I've got a list of a few factories that we might be able to beat back into working order, if you'll oversee that. You've got centuries of experience and technical knowledge over anyone else I could put in charge of it."

The Ghoul nodded. It may not have been the calling of his heart, but for the moment the Mojave needed his technical skills a lot more than it needed his gun hand. "I'll see what I can do boss, though buying stuff from the Gun Runners would be quicker."

"True, but I don't want to be reliant on trade for supplying the army, if we can make it in house that would be ideal. Speaking of trading, Cass that's your business." He turned to the caravaner, who was flipping through the notes before pouring herself another shot glass of breakfast. "I'm putting you in charge of managing trade convoys.

Cass looked like she'd almost choked on her whiskey. "Me? Running all the trading in Vegas?"

"Well at least the trading that we directly control, I'll make some funds available to you to get something started. I'd rather we directly control at least some trading ventures rather than being totally at the mercy of independent contractors. Can you handle that?"

"Hell yes." She said, taking another shot. "Cassidy Caravans is back in business! I'll see what we've got to trade, gotta be something in his city somebody wants to buy."

Alaric smirked, he could always rely upon her to lift his spirits. "Arcade, I'm putting some funding your way, the region is hurting after the war and we need to fix that, we need to become independent. The Dam is inoperable currently, we don't have the manpower ready to get it working again, and Helios can't handle the strain all on its own. We need to get power flowing to the region, especially if we want to get an industrial base set up. Work with the Followers, I know I'm not the most popular with them since I increased their workload, but they'll trust you I hope. I'd start by looking at some of the more functional vaults around here, if we can get their power plants patched into the city's power grid it would take a lot of the slack of the solar plant."

"Sounds like as good a place as any to start." The warriors scientist said, looking at a map, already seeing the layout of power lines. "Vaults 3, 19 and 11 seem like good prospects, the Vault 21 generators are already helping out but they can't fully supply the entire city as is, let alone getting factories back into operation."

"Hopefully by then we can get the Dam functional again, it's intact we just need to get a trained workforce to operate the place." Reynolds pointed out, looking through his notes. "That just leaves one item on the agenda, Veronica."

The Brotherhood scribe turned to him, clearly interested. "Let me guess, you want me to help scavenge all the useful tech out there to help everyone else?"

"No, I want you to go back to Hidden Valley." Alaric said, trying not to feel hurt at the shocked expression on his face.

"There isn't much for me there. I'm not an exile but I'm hardly on the best of terms with the Brotherhood." She pointed out, and it was very true. Apart from some sympathy with elder McNamara she was not entirely welcomed by a lot of the more senior staff.

"True, but I need you there. I have a bad feeling about the Brotherhood, they were helpful but I don't think that attitude will stay for long. I need you to be my eyes in Hidden Valley, and to maybe try to influence some of their members."

"You want me to spy on the people who raised me." She said, voice neutral.

"Spy is a very… ugly word. I want to help ensure they don't do something stupid." He countered deftly. "I want a peaceful solution, you said yourself the Brotherhood needs to find a place in society, I want to help see that happen. But we both know they're not going to go there without a little help, or a little prodding. I need you to be that prod, the voice that helps to nudge them out of their bunker and into the light of day."

She nodded, interlacing her fingers. "And this new place in society, what is it exactly?"

"To be the protectors of the Mojave, to study the advanced technology we recover in our efforts, to use their skills and knowledge to improve the lives of everyone living here. That is why the Brotherhood was founded in the first place, is it not?"

She mulled it over. "It sounds like you're looking to recruit them." She pointed out.

He shrugged. "Perhaps, I want them to become useful, an asset to the region rather than a detriment. Right now they're on a course for self-destruction, and you know it. They're going down a dark road and they're looking to take a lot of other people down with them if they don't have a course correction. I need you to be the thing that helps lead them away from that."

Finally, Veronica smiled. "You're right, I'll see what I can do. Don't know if they'll listen to me though."

"Just do what you can." Reynolds assured her, ticking off the last item on his mental checklist. "Well, we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but I think we can pull this off." He said, in that confidant tone he used when he needed to get people motivated into doing something he needed done. "Thankfully for you all your employer is somewhat wealthy, so I'll make sure you all have plenty of money to throw at the problem."

There was a good bit of laughter at that, but Alaric knew full well that his resources were hardly limitless. They were in fact frighteningly restrained, business was down across the Strip as a war was understandably bad for tourism. Still, this all needed to be done if they were to survive. Vegas was independent, and he'd be damned if he lived to see it be brought low to anyone else.

=== Author's Note ===

The next few chapters should be coming shortly. Like most everyone else who played the game, I had my own vision of how Vegas turned out after the game ended. Being the obsessive that I am I just had to write my thoughts down and put them out there so hopefully someone else can enjoy my little daydream as much as I have.

I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback, so please comment and review, it all helps get more story written better and faster. So I really want to hear what you have to say! Yes, you, the one at the keyboard with the face and the limbs, I mean you.


	2. Stacking the Deck

"You've done a fantastic job keeping this place under control." Alaric said, looking over Freeside from a window in the King's building. "Most of the Mojave descended into chaos when the battle broke out, I'm glad this place kept calm."

The King, self-appointed and universally respected mayor and sheriff of Freeside stood next to him. "We're too big for those Legion boys to hit, what with them being all tied up at the Dam. Things got a little tense though when the soldier boys realized they weren't welcome."

"I'm sorry if there were any disturbances." Alaric offered, and it was genuine. He liked The King, and he liked Freeside, he wouldn't want to see the place harmed.

"Those rolling TVs of yours helped, glad you talked them down into leaving peacefully. Been enough fighting here these past few months. Freeside is Freeside, we're as welcoming and friendly as it comes but we don't take very kindly to big shots coming in and pushing people around."

The thinly veiled threat was hardly lost upon the one-time courier, he let it roll by. "Freeside is Freeside." He echoed. "And I have no intention on pushing anyone around. I have enough trouble on my plate at the moment, and I'm very glad that you all can take care of yourselves. I'm not House, I don't mind you all here one bit."

The tension in the room lessened considerably. "Well, it isn't all our doing." The King conceded. "Julie and the Followers have been helping a lot, poor girl's got her hands full though. Got the water pumps running though and there's enough food coming in."

"I'm giving the Followers some assistance, in the form of funding. They may have been barely tolerated by the NCR, but I fully appreciate their assistance." The Followers were skilled, and their code and morals made them very reliable and easy to manipulate, just point them at a problem and give them some resources and they would work themselves tired at trying to solve it. The more he could get them to do for free, the more resources he could put into other projects.

"That's good, that's real good, people around here are used to being ignored by the Strip, maybe they see you helping out around here a bit and they'll warm up." The King said, seeming pleased with the new administration.

"I hope so, because I'm going to need Freeside's help, and your help." When he saw The King's curiosity he continued. "We're putting together a fighting force, an army if you will, to defend the Mojave. The robots are good but they can't do it all on their own, and I don't want to put all our eggs in one basket. Freeside has a big population, and your own people have a lot of skill. I won't take you away from your place here, but I'm asking for a little help."

The King was a little skeptical. "You're asking for me to help you make an army huh? Not many people around here very well disposed to soldier boys, after the last few years."

"Precisely why I need your help. This isn't an army of conquest, it'll just be a militia at first. But we need people to help keep these communities safe. The Mojave is lawless and dangerous, you can't travel the roads without being threatened by hostile creatures or bandits. We need people to help make this place safe again, foster trade, keep communities secure. The Mojave needs help, I'm asking you to help me give it."

That appealed nicely to the man's ego, he was normally a rather humble individual but he saw himself as Freeside's protector, and the prospect of Freeside not helping keep the wastes safer, of avoiding the burden others were taking on, wouldn't sit well with him.

"I'll see what I can do, maybe there are some who'd help out with this idea of yours."

Alaric smiled warmly, knowing that with the King's endorsement, even a subjective one, would swell the ranks a lot faster and avoid ill feelings towards the new army from the locals. He needed to avoid being seen as just another NCR.

He offered The King his hand, and they shook. "Thank you." He said. "Thank you very much."

XXXXX

With Freeside dealt with Alaric had one less thing on his depressingly long list to worry about. Too many factions, too many differing interests to worry about and balance. The Followers for instance, kind hearted and helpful, but they coupled almost blind idealism with political activism that could cause problems. They did a lot to help the world become a better place, but they seemed to operate on the belief that everything was smoothly gliding along to a bright future of sunshine and happiness and got angry at anyone who didn't mesh with their ideals.

They could be a very useful asset for him, they did after all support the concept of a free Vegas, but they didn't seem to have ever considered what that really entailed. It was like they expected the city to be declared 'free' and that was all it took to make the populace dance in the streets and start working together to build a better tomorrow. If only, if only.

Despite his patronage in the past, there was a fair bit of friction between him and the followers at the Old Fort, who'd have guessed that enforcing your dominion through an army of remorseless killer robots would earn you some resentment with a group of mostly pacifist idealists. Still, Farkas at least understood that it was best for everyone to work with him rather than against him, but they were still a potential problem if not handled properly. The last thing he needed was them running around spreading dissent against his governance, creating strife in the notion that it would somehow lead to more prosperity.

But despite his many ideological differences with the organization, he always had rather liked the Followers. While the futures they dreamt of were markedly different, he was an idealist as well at the end of the day, he just used rather different methods to bring about his goals. So, easy smile on his face, he entered the Mormon Fort with a few cautious looks from the guards at the gate and saw Farkas looking over some papers.

"Place is more busy than I remembered." He noted as he walked over.

Farkas gave him a sideways glance. There were quite a few more patients than he was used to seeing and she looked more tired than before. "The whole region has been in upheaval since the battle. Legion attacks and then bandits taking advantage of the lack of the NCR presence. Say what you will about them but they helped keep the place safer. Now that they're gone…" she let it hang, staring at him with a stern, judging gaze.

Had to hand it to her, she was managing to stare down the sovereign of the city. "True, but the Legion has been driven off and the days of any bandit operating in the area are numbered, I have plans in place to deal with that. That's part of why I'm here." He responded.

"Plans? I take it that your plans involve large amounts of bloodshed." She responded cuttingly.

He frowned slightly. "Don't give me that. How do you think the NCR kept things quiet? By shooting any Fiend or Powder Ganger they saw. If you want the roads safe then don't disparage the only way to make it happen. I'd love if everyone just put their guns down and went home, but that's not going to happen and you know it. But I didn't come here to ask you to fight, I need your help with other matters. Specifically, improving living conditions across the Mojave."

She still seemed annoyed at him, but she didn't push it further. "You have my attention."

Alaric smiled graciously. "I'm sure you're aware of the power difficulties we've been having since the battle, Hoover is non-operational. I've put Gannon in charge of getting some new power systems online but I'm sure he could use a lot of help there. Also we need someone to help manage medical services."

"Travel from here to the NCR is… difficult." Farkas responded in a measured tone, clearly not wishing to appear weak before Reynolds. "We got by on the supplies we were getting before but without an influx of supplies I don't know how much we're going to be able to do."

"Exactly, New Vegas needs to become fully independent, self-sufficient." Alaric agreed. "We need manufacturing capability, power generation, food production. I need your help making these things a reality. The Followers have some of the best scientific minds and engineering knowhow in the Mojave, if not the best. And I'm willing to put economic backing behind your projects, the city's economy is still humming along and I'm holding the purse full of tax money."

Farkas crossed her arms, managing to look decidedly fierce despite her usually relaxed nature. "Cut off from our support structure, and offered supplies by you, do you expect us to do whatever you want? We just got out from under one dictator in Vegas, not many people in this fort would be eager to get on the payroll of another. No offense." She added after a moment.

"None taken, I hardly intend to be a dictator in any case." He said, waving a hand to brush away her impolite accusation like an annoying fly. "I am hardly here to buy your cooperation. But there are jobs that need doing or else people are going to suffer, if the Mojave region doesn't become self-sufficient and stable then we're easy pickings for the NCR or the Legion the next time they come around, and believe me doctor they will come back around. The NCR needs the Dam, and the Legion needs to look good. If we're not ready by the time they come back, then all of this." He waved his hand to indicate the busy medical facilities. "Will be nothing compared to what's going to happen in the future. You have to choose doctor, whether your dislike of me and how I operate is more important to you than the safety of the people living here."

There it was, the ultimatum. In the end he didn't have to offer her anything, and threats would be pointless. He just had to help her see the consequences of her not helping, set her ego against her conscience. And for someone like Julie Farkas that was no competition at all.

"I'll need to see a listing of the projects you have in mind." She said cautiously. "But I think we can work on something. Strictly humanitarian projects you understand, we're here to help the people, not support your regime."

Alaric smiled graciously, handing her a holotape. "Of course doctor, feel free to refuse anything you wish, this is strictly voluntary work and I'll give you funding for whatever projects you decide to tackle, just please keep in contact with me about what you're working on. I'll set up a liaison for you to keep tabs with."

They talked for a little while more, exchanging a few pleasantries, before he finally turned and left. Alaric smiled as he left the Mormon Fort, the pacifism of the Followers didn't bother him at all. Each hand they sent to work on power generators or aqueducts would free up another set of hands he could turn to getting a weapons factory online, or perusing any number of other defense projects. He would get his army, Farkas would keep busy, and the people of the Mojave would be safer and more comfortable. He loved it when he set up a situation where everyone could win, especially where he won more than anyone else.

XXXXX

Back in the spire of the Lucky 38, Alaric considered the situation in the city around him. With the Followers dealt with to his satisfaction, Vegas itself was reasonably secure. The Van Graffs were gone, the ones back in NCR dealing with legal disputes and the local branch wiped out after they decided to start shooting at him for starting said legal issues. Considering that up and killing people they didn't like was the cause of their problems in the first place it didn't seem like a terribly sound line of decision making but he wasn't going to complain about them giving him a perfectly valid justification to exterminate the lot of them. Though the folks at the Atomic Wrangler were a bit upset as someone decided to start the Silver Rush up as a casino again, in direct competition to them.

Westside was chugging along nicely, they had barely felt the attempted annexation by the NCR and the declaration of independent Vegas had rolled by them just as smoothly. The general mood was one of happiness as it was less likely now that anyone would interfere in their business. Though despite being part of the city they were only nominally involved in its affairs, related to Vegas proper only geographically, as they didn't put themselves up as a 'Little Strip' like Freeside did, just being an independent and self-sufficient suburb content to mind its own business regardless of the world outside.

Honestly Alaric was glad of it, unlike Freeside they had no real government, not even a self-declared one, and their quiet contentedness made them easy to deal with. For the moment he was quite happy to politely ignore Westside, a sentiment they returned in kind. Sadly, the situation beyond the city itself was not so stable.

The Powder Gangs were still a problem. Whatever political motivations they had possessed seemed to have dried up with the NCR's retreat from the area. They were just another group of bandits and raiders now, no matter what they said. Some had left the region, good riddance as far as he was concerned, but the rest had fragmented into a dozen different groups that hounded what little trade was carrying on in the Mojave.

The Fiends were another issue, while their leader was dead and their base in Vault 3 had been taken they were still a problem. Scattered to the four winds they continued their attacks on traders and settlements, now causing problems for everyone on the Mojave rather than just the outskirts of Vegas itself. Their numbers were nothing like they had been before, and they lacked even a token leadership anymore, they were going to die out in a generation. But if something wasn't done they would cause a lot of problems for everyone else before they died off.

At least the Khans were gone. They hadn't been all that bad, but they had also been supplying the junkies of the Mojave with most of their chems, helping perpetuate the problem. Hopefully the tempering influence of the Followers would help them reforge themselves into something better. They had set off to the north, hoping to build a new civilization for themselves, and he honestly wished them luck. At the very least they were out of his hair for the time being.

The outlying towns were an issue to be dealt with, and one that would have to be handled carefully if he was to succeed. His dominion over Vegas was uncontested, he controlled the robotic armies that policed it and kept it secure, and so far people seemed quite content to have a legion of Securitrons keeping the dangers of the wasteland at bay. But towns like Goodsprings, Novac and Primm were another matter entirely.

Part of the issue was that there had been no pre-existing government beyond Vegas itself. Mr. House had always claimed direct control of the Strip, but beyond that the towns had always been independent and happily so. Alaric would not make the same mistakes the previous sovereign of Vegas had however, he knew that in order to maintain his position he had to look beyond the Strip, beyond its secure walls and mechanical defenders.

The wasteland had changed. It wasn't all just lawless chaotic frontier anymore, there were organized nations with huge armies to contend with. The days when a town could slap together a wall out of scrap, hire a few guards to wave around shotguns and only have to worry about the occasional raider gang were dead and gone. No single town could hope to stand before something like the NCR or the Legion. When either of those forces returned, and return they would, they would take the towns one by one. Either by brute force or honeyed words, either force could sweep the Mojave bit by bit, until they marched their territory right up to the gates of Vegas itself and made it into a siege.

No, the Mojave would have to be united. It was for the good of everyone living there, only united could they raise an army, repair infrastructure, maintain their civilization. Divided they would fall, united they would stand, there was no other option. He just had to make sure that all the other towns saw it was in their best interests to become a part of his new nation, and come willingly.

Alaric mulled the situation over in his head, and the plan started to come together as he considered his options.

"Yes Man, compile a report on the raider problem please." He ordered to one of the nearby Securitrons. "And get me a tactical disposition of the Securitron army."

XXXXX

Three days later, Alaric was standing on a podium in the main hall of the Bison Steve resort in Primm, overlooking the assembled crowd. Primm, like many towns in the Mojave, existed on a system of generally polite anarchy. There was a sheriff, in this case Primm Slim, who he had reprogrammed to fulfill the role, but there was no mayor or government of any kind. Everyone more or less minded their own business, and ran their own lives without ever seeming to consider that putting someone in charge could be useful. It had worked well enough, but it was a system that was never going anywhere. They could exist like that, but never improve. He was here to change that.

Of course Primm was different in another way, it was sitting right on a trade route between Vegas and the NCR, and while business was bad now it would eventually pick up. If he could get this town on his side it could serve as an example of what joining up could do for a settlement. That and be a major cash cow once he could start collecting taxes on trade coming and going.

"People of Primm." He said in a warm, open tone. "I know you've had about enough of speeches, so I'd rather just have a chat." He began, smiling. "Times have been tough for the past few years, I know as much as anybody. The NCR wanted to tax everyone to death, and the Legion wanted to make slaves of the whole Mojave. You can all debate which option was worse." There were a few chuckles at that, good. "And all that time Mr. House sat pretty behind his walls and ignored all the problems you've been spending your lives dealing with. It got so bad you almost had to accept NCR's martial law just to keep the town safe." General murmuring broke out at that, it had been a dark time in their recent history.

"Now, I helped you out then and was glad to do it, I don't take kindly to folks who just sit around while other people are in need. I take action. The NCR sat on its hands outside of town while Powder Gangers ran rampant and shot people down in the streets. Well, we ran them right out of town!" He declared, grinning at the catcalls and cheers. "When you needed help and everyone else turned their backs, I got you an iron-skinned sheriff to help keep this town safe. And I followed through by pushing the convicts out of the NCRCF."

The mood was running higher in the room, but he knew he was dangerously close to self-aggrandizement from how he read the crowd. "But I'm not here to toot my own horn." He said dismissively, waving a hand nonchalantly as if to distract from what he had been saying. "I'm here to help. Times are tough for everybody right now, caravans aren't coming through, roads aren't safe. Well, I'm here to ask for your help." He had them listening now, it wasn't every day a man in a nice suit came down from Vegas to ask for help from people like them.

"I'm here to ask you to be part of something, a united Mojave. Not just a collection of little towns trying to get by, but a real nation. We ran off the NCR and the Legion, and together we can be a country of our own, really make something of ourselves. If we work together we can make this land prosperous, keep the roads safe, foster trade and travel." For a town built on trading and exploiting tourism with Vegas, that would be a strong draw.

One of the townsfolk spoke up when he offered a pause. "And what are you going to take from us? Nobody would do this for free."

Alaric nodded, as if they had caught him on something. "True, true, would that I could but this world ain't perfect. There will be some taxation, but!" He held up a quick hand. "Significantly less than what the NCR would have enforced. And I would wager that keeping the roads clear and fixing up the town would be well worth the price paid to make it happen. As it stands you're losing a lot more to lack of business than you ever would to taxes."

"I'm hearing a lot of talk." Another person said, arms crossed. "NCR was long on promises too, and they let Powder Gangs overrun the town, made a lot of problems for us all while talking big about progress and safety."

Again, Alaric appeared to concede the point. "Very true, so far you have heard a lot of talk from me, and little action. While I have a lot to offer you and could stand here all day making my case, I think I would much rather just show you what you have to look forward to. A few miles south of here there's a bandit encampment that's been causing you no shortage of problems for a long time now, I believe. Vipers, bunch of highwaymen taking advantage of the chaos, now joined by ex-Fiends and Powder Gangers and every other lowlife thieving raider in the Mojave. Their numbers have swelled, they're a major threat to you all, in time they might even threaten the town."

He had done his research, had some agents case the town. He knew their worries and rumors, the fears that the bandits might come back. "Then you have the NCRCF, occupied by another bunch of thieves and thugs, again. It doesn't matter how many times we send them running, they're like cockroaches they just keep coming back. Well I'm not like the NCR, I'm not going to sit in my outpost while a few miles away good people get preyed upon."

He leaned in, smiling as if he was going to share with them some big secret. "So to give you a little taste of the kind of benefits you can have if you join on with me, I'm going to wipe them all from the face of the Mojave. Permanently."

XXXXX

The next day, Alaric was standing around the circular map table in the Lucky 38. Projected onto the screen was the battle map of the area surrounding Primm, with the target locations outlined in red and Securitron formations in blue.

"Quite a plan you have worked up." Arcade said from where he was looking over the map. "Risky too, if anyone knew what you were up to."

Alaric had to agree. He did not like the idea of a plan 'so crazy it might just work', as that seemed like a painful generalization and a rather foolish notion in the first place. But this plan of his wasn't far off. It was tactically sound, the attack at least. Rather the plan was so risky, so audacious that nobody would ever expect him to do it.

He looked over to the icon representing Hoover Dam. Beyond the Strip itself it was the single most important thing in the Mojave. Its power generation capabilities made it a strategic resource that could build or break a nation. The fact that it was a feat of engineering the likes of which could not be built by any society in the wasteland made it beyond priceless. With the Securitron vault right next door it was heavily guarded, with the vast majority of Alaric's army there to defend it. Anyone would be a fool to try and attack that position. Everyone in the Mojave knew this. Everyone in the Mojave was wrong.

Hoover Dam stood silent as the tomb, its corridors empty. Its defenses picked clean and left with barely a skeleton force to hold the priceless installation. The Securitrons still there were moving quickly, rolling on their rotating patrols, moving in and out of buildings, keeping the illusion that the full army was still there, but the defenses were a house of cards. As for the bunker at Fortification Hill, it was entirely empty. Every Securitron available was deployed, there was no reserve.

That army had been mobilized, sent out to deal with the raider threat, as well as put in a meaningful presence along the roads and in other settlements. Using a force of this magnitude to deal with what was essentially two oversized raider camps seemed like pointless overkill, but that was itself the point. This was a display of strength, to show the sheer might of his mechanical army and send a message to the entire Mojave. The roads were being watched, and every settlement was under the protection of a far greater power.

If he pulled this off they would all sign on quick enough, and then see to their own defense with militias before eventually supporting the army's formation. Then he could pull his Securitrons back to their much needed purpose, defending the most vital positions like Hoover, Helios, and the Strip itself. If everything went to plan then the Mojave would fall right into line, and nobody would ever realize that he had pulled off the greatest shell game in the last hundred years.

"I know Arcade, but there's no other way, at least no other way to do it quickly." He pointed out. "You know as well as I that the NCR will be back soon, and if we're not united by the time they return then the people here will be easy pickings for them. If we can put up a united front, negotiate from a position of security and strength, we stand a chance. Otherwise they'll take us piecemeal. Not to speak of what the legion will do."

The scientist nodded. "Yes, I imagine they would both start climbing over each other if they realized that you had taken the Dam from them, only to practically leave it undefended. At least everyone is so afraid of the army they think is standing guard that they refuse to go near."

Alaric sighed. "I know, I know we're vulnerable. Hell at this point the Fiends would stand a decent chance in taking the Dam if they put their backs into it. But they'll have their hands busy soon enough. And hopefully by the time we get the Mojave unified those robots will be back where they're supposed to be and nobody will be any the wiser."

"Oh yes, the plan is brilliant." Arcade conceded. "Demented, but brilliant. Counting on the Dam's reputation alone to keep it safe, it has been the great fortress of the NCR for years now. Even if all the guards at Fort Knox went on vacation most people would still be afraid to go near it."

"Brilliant eh? High praise from you." Alaric said with a chuckle, hoping history wasn't going to prove him a massive fool.

"And demented." Arcade pointed out, raising a finger. "But it's this kind of unconventional thinking that made me tag along with you in the first place. And clearly you've been doing something right."

Alaric turned to his friend, brow raised. "Oh is that why? I thought you were following me because of my rugged handsomeness and winning charm."

"It is one of the reasons." Arcade corrected after a moment.

Still smiling, Alaric turned back to the map table. "Yes Man. Commence the operation." He said after taking a deep breath, watching the little blue icons start moving towards their targets.


	3. Sweeping the Pot

The Viper encampment along Highway 95 fell first. It wasn't much of a position, just a ramshackle little camp bloated by a recent influx of new members after the other raider gangs had been driven out of the Vegas suburbs by the NCR, and later by the Securitron army. It was an exposed position and largely indefensible, surviving this far largely by the grace of the NCR ignoring it and the problems it had caused, too tied up in their own red tape and their general's self-aggrandizing foolishness. They would not receive similar treatment under the new regime. Apart from the odd group holed up in a gas station or patrol station along the highway, the raiders were mostly exposed with only a few dragged up car wrecks or plywood boards to serve as makeshift walls, they might as well have been paper.

The open ground and highway was the perfect terrain for the Securitrons, wide and smooth and they made good time, a blitzkrieg charge across open country towards the Vipers and Fiends ahead. Of course they weren't hard to spot, the dust trail alone they kicked into the sky was visible from Primm, but it didn't matter much. Rifle rounds, pistol shot, the occasional laser bounced and glanced off of their armored hulls as the Securitrons opened fire. Under order to conserve their rockets, they opted to engage with gatling lasers and their 9mm submachine guns, as well as the occasional heavy cough of a grenade launcher firing.

It was swift and brutal, the massed army of robots encircling the camp and opening fire on anything that moved, hosing the encampment down with rapid fire torrents of laser beams and the rattle of automatic weapons. A few robots were damaged, lucky shots catching them in weak points, disabling an arm, popping a tire, forcing them to fall back and initiate self-repair systems but there was always more to take their place, it seemed like the army was infinite and invincible. That was of course, the point of this entire exercise.

Within half an hour the gunfire stopped, the droning voices of the robots fell quiet as they surveyed their handiwork with impassive professional distain. The camp was reduced to ash and cinders, burned and broken bodies littered the fields and highway like crushed insects, nothing had been allowed to escape. Satisfied that their work was done, the Securitrons turned and assumed their formation again, rolling off up the highway towards the NCRCF.

The retaken prison was a rather different beast altogether. The Powder Gangers had taken over quite a nice little stronghold, and their supply of explosives had been put to good use mining the approaches to the facility. One blast would easily disable the wheel of at least one Securitron, so if they wanted to avoid needless casualties they would have to take the approach slow and careful. Of course that also left them exposed to the gunfire of the prison's defenders. Of course Powder Ganger firearms were generally not very impressive, whatever they could scrounge up, but all it took was a lucky shot to the arm joint or a wheel to disable one of the machines.

Given the heightened danger of this operation, the robots were allowed to exercise a little less restraint in their assault.

The Powder Gangers had been on edge for the last hour, they had seen a smoke column on the horizon and heard distant crackles and booms, something bad was going down to the south. Some laughed, saying it was probably the Fiends torching Primm and maybe they could go join in. Others weren't so optimistic and were getting nervous. Their boss had ordered the perimeter guard increased, but it didn't have quite the impact he had been hoping.

One of the tower sentries just had time to shout that he saw something coming around the corner into their canyon when he and everything else in the tower was torn apart in a storm of shrapnel. Smoky contrails arced from the shoulder mounted missile racks of several Securitrons as they fired on carefully calculated indirect arcs, lobbing explosive ordinance high over the walls of the prison complex to slam into guard posts and defensive emplacements.

Surprise thus achieved and shock instilled, the robots took their advance slower, more careful. Some laid down suppressive fire at range with hails of gatling laser fire, the weapons discharging at their maximum effective range, but with the sheer volume of shots being pumped out it was hard to miss and it kept heads down quite nicely. Others slowly advanced, hunched down as they scanned the ground before them for traps and explosives, onboard sensor packages carefully studying the approaches. Usually they detected the mines, either sensing the proximity detonators or seeing the upturned soil where they had been buried. These were safely destroyed with a quick burst of laser fire. Others were not found and exploded when the less lucky robots tried to pass, shredding wheels and sending the invaluable robots toppling like bowling pins.

But the minefield was not terribly long, and eventually the first robot passed through, signaling to the others that it had found a clear path through the defenses. Then a second passed through the cleared lane, and a third. Soon the entire force was crashing through the opening in the defenses like water through a funnel before expanding on the other side.

By this point the Powder Gangers were in retreat, their defenses breached and their compound littered with fallen guard towers and blackened bodies. A group fled into the central building, slamming the door just in time for it to explode off its hinges, slicing one man in half and throwing the rest from their feet. Missile launcher smoking, the first Securitron forced its way through the blasted doorway, boxy shoulders dislodging clumps of masonry, gyros whirring to keep it balanced as it negotiated the little pile of rubble that was the doorway.

In close quarters the robots were unbeatable, at least by these enemies. 9mm and .357 rounds pinged harmlessly off their hulls, the impassive faces on their screens unflinching as they conducted the slaughter. The prison had been their fortress, now it was a great trap, the walls and fences preventing the panicked survivors from fleeing as they trampled each other in a blind panic.

As suddenly as the firefight had begun, it ended and the deathly silence of the compound was broken only by the crackle of flames and the crunch of gravel under tires. One of the Securitrons, designated as a command and control unit, collated the sensor data of its peers and sent a data pulse to central command. +++Mission completed+++ it sent, following with the addendum +++No survivors+++.

Miles away, in the luxurious spire of the Lucky 38, Alaric looked at the message glowing on the tactical display. "Well, that should send a message." He remarked, pouring himself a glass of wine.

XXXXX

"That was Bing Crosby everybody, with 'Something's Gotta Give', a sentiment I think we have all felt a little in recent days. And now for the news. Government forces have recently carried out a series of raids on targets in the area surrounding Primm. This was in response to the growing threats posed by raider bands in the region, which have been growing in number since the battle of Hoover Dam. An RNV reporter was on hand to speak to Mr. Reynolds, who orchestrated the attack."

"We came to send a message, to tell everyone living here that the roads are being watched, that we're not going to sit idly by while highwaymen and thugs brutalize people in the countryside. The days when a raider gang could jump a caravan and run off to some hideaway without facing reprisals are over and it's far past time that we all let it be known that we're not going to stand for this anymore."

"And how do you plan to proceed? What is the future of Primm now?"

"The people of Primm have made their decision and voted to officially join with Vegas, this is the first step in creating a truly united Mojave. It is my hope that other towns across the wasteland will follow in their footsteps. In these times it's important to show solidarity, especially in the face of dangerous elements who would take everything we've worked towards away. These raids are just the first step in a program to secure the roads and trade centers."

"Sounds like a very ambitious plan, what exactly are you offering, beyond protection?"

"The protection is of course only the first step. By unifying the peoples of the Mojave under one banner, we can do so much more. We can repair infrastructure, ensure the supply of electricity and clean water, coordinate medical efforts. But beyond that we will have the knowhow and the manpower to accomplish so much, to make the Mojave a place we're proud to live in, not just survive in."

"I have heard some rumors, concerns that you're going to be another NCR, there are lots of folks worried about taxation out there."

"Taxes are a sad but necessary part of running any nation. But the important thing, what makes this different from the NCR, is where those taxes are going. They won't be paid off to some far distant government that doesn't care about the Mojave or its people, so long as their lands are secure and their lives comfortable. They will be used right here, to improve the lives of everyone living here in so many ways. These are our own people, not the soldiers of a distant nation hungry for land and wealth, this is us picking ourselves up. It's time that we make something greater of our home, something that lets us stand up, look anyone else in the eye and tell them we're proud to be the people of the Mojave."

"Well, there you have it from the headman himself. What the long term implications of this will be is anyone's guess at this point, but we here at RNV will keep you all up to date as the situation develops. This is Mr. New Vegas, wishing you all the best. Next up we have…"

Alaric switched off the radio before drumming his fingers on the lip of the strategy map before him, the glowing icons of different towns and formations, and the long web of lines color coded to show roads, power lines, water mains and every other bit of infrastructure they knew about. It also displayed a tentative and, in his opinion, woefully overoptimistic list of projects to get everything back in working order. "We're off to a good start at least."

He looked up, seeing Arcade walking in.

"Arcade, thought you'd be up to your elbows in a vault's reactor by now." Alaric said with a small grin.

"Working on it, right now we've got some mercenaries clearing the vaults, there's always some variety of critter that's moved into them. That and the piles of corpses in Vault 3." He added.

"Ah, right, I remember that." Reynolds said with a nod, considering he'd been the one who turned that place into a charnel house. "Can't imagine it's in very good shape."

"I've ordered a deep cleaning and fumigation, the stench is horrendous." Gannon said with a grimace. "The vital systems seem intact though, thankfully the Fiends didn't amuse themselves by taking sledgehammers to the reactor casing or something equally annoying. Good news is that these Vaults always have redundant power supplies, usually have both geothermal and nuclear power in place, very redundant. We get both systems operating at the same time and we'll have quite a bit of power. That added to what the Lucky 38 and Helios are generating should be more than enough to begin improving conditions around here."

"Excellent, very glad to hear it." He said, ticking a few items on the list off as he looked at the positions of the Vaults on the map. "Primm will have been the easiest town to get to sign on. Take out the raider problem and bam, they're a trade town so that's their livelihood. Novac and Goodsprings though are more independent, we'll need to offer them something more than just patrols to get their support. Water, power and supplies would be great bargaining tools. And then of course there's Jacobstown." He gave the northwest corner of the map a jab.

"They are understandably a little reluctant to deal with most humans. Considering our tendency to shoot at them." Gannon pointed out, and he conceded the point.

"I know. I hear that Doctor Henry has made great progress with developing a solution to the Nightkin's mental issues. Considering that one of the big reasons for their isolation was trying to keep them out of trouble, hopefully they will be more open in the future. I also intend to make it clear that I won't treat them any differently because of what they are. It's just another town as far as I'm concerned."

Arcade nodded, in all the time he'd been with Alaric he hadn't seen him treat any mutant differently than anyone else, ghoul or supermutant, than anyone else he talked to. Besides that, not many could stare down a Nightkin and make them blink first. "Sounds like you have this all planned out." The scientist observed.

"I talked to Marcus at length. He's an idealist, and so am I at the end of the day. He used to run a town called Broken Hills where humans, ghouls and mutants lived together in relative peace. He wants coexistence and friendship between humanity and all its mutated offspring. I plan on making that a reality, ghouls, mutants, humans. I won't treat any of them differently. I've always treated his people fairly and he knows that, I even helped him find a solution to his biggest problem in my own small way. We have a lot to offer each other, and we have to get them onboard."

"You could just leave them in peace." Arcade pointed out.

"True, but differences would grow, resentments would form." Alaric reasoned. "By joining together, and through familiarity with each other, we'll become comfortable with each other. People won't stop fearing supermutants until they see them every day, and learn that they're no more threat than any other person out there."

Not completely convinced, but satisfied, Arcade nodded. "A reasonable understanding. But I'd watch yourself, if you carry on that line of reasoning to its absolute end then the only way to ensure peace is to unite everyone under one banner. Advocates of peace through global dominion don't have a terribly flattering portrayal in most history books."

Alaric quirked a brow, adopting a look of surprise. "Have you been looking through my plans to annex and recolonize China?" When his joke fell a little flat, he let his smile drop. "I'll keep it in mind my friend, it's a dangerous precedent to set. That's part of why I like having you around, you keep me honest."

It was Arcade's turn to raise a brow. "I thought it was because you needed a 'big strong doctor to look after you'."

"It is one of the reasons." He corrected with a perfectly straight face, allowing himself a small grin as the scientist turned warrior turned and left again. His smile gradually dropped as his gaze returned to the map before him, sighing as he once again felt the weight of the undertaking before him bearing down on his shoulders.

XXXXX

Much to Alaric's surprise and relief, the other towns signed on with his idea a lot quicker than he had anticipated. His demonstration, and the constant touting of the accomplishment by RNV, had let his vision of a united Mojave spread like wildfire. Currently several of his appointed diplomats were hammering out the details with the leaders of various towns and a structure was making itself seen.

Each town would have a mayor elected by its people, each able to bring cases to the capitol of Vegas and negotiate issues facing their individual settlements. Alaric was under no illusions that he was effectively a dictator at this point, but establishing a new structure for a representative government would be a long and arduous affair that could wait until after the Mojave had been unified and made safe. Until then he just had to promise himself to be a good king and plan on relinquishing power someday.

The Securitron army was still on patrol. It was necessary for them to continue to be seen by the general populace. He had promised protection and until he had an army of flesh and blood to ensure it, he would have to use the army of steel. His bluff just had to hold for a while longer, and everyone was too preoccupied with the changing situation in the Mojave to plan an attack on the Dam. At least that was what he told himself when he started to get nervous.

As he saw it, there were still two major issues to be dealt with, at least as far as the Mojave's inhabitants went. There was the Brotherhood of Steel, the isolationist sect of power armored warriors caused him no end of worry and concern. They sat silent in their bunker, no contact in or out, and he had heard nothing from Veronica since he had sent her back. While the group had some noble ideals, they had once fought a war against people trying to rebuild the wasteland because they seemed to believe that nobody except them deserved to touch anything more advanced than a lightbulb. That combined with their xenophobia and seemingly innate belief that everyone outside their order was a degenerate savage of some stripe or another made them a very delicate issue.

When he had walked the halls of the Hidden Valley bunker, he had seen them for what they were beneath the armor. Good people at heart but weighed down by fear and duty. Fear that the whole world was set against them, that they were the last bastion of what was good and hopeful in the world. Duty to their old ideals and mission that made them utterly convinced that without them there could be no hope for the future. It was a strange kind of arrogance that kept them waiting and hording their technology, convinced despite all evidence that they were the only ones worthy to use it, or wise enough to understand it. That it was their burden alone to bear the torch of knowledge into the future and no one else had the right to rebuild society without their express permission. It had struck him as so profoundly sad, that they were forever waiting for the day that they would emerge from their bunkers and usher in a new golden age, waiting for a day that would never come as the world quietly passed them by. Societies had formed, science and learning rose from the ashes, but the Brotherhood was still stuck in the mindset of the day after the bombs fell, waiting for the radiation to clear.

He shook his head, they were coming up on a turning point, and would either be a boon or a bane to him and everyone in the Mojave. The other issue was Jacobstown far to the northwest. Resentment and paranoia had kept them isolated, but from what he heard from his friends there things were progressing nicely. And thankfully for him, Jacobstown was a problem he could work on directly. There would be no marching into Hidden Valley and negotiating with the Brotherhood, but thankfully Marcus was a much more gracious host.

So, less than a week after the demonstrations near Primm, Alaric was heading up towards Jacobstown. He was humming along on the broken highway atop an electric motorcycle, flanked by a retinue of Securitrons. The bike was a subtle message, a small taste of what a little work and know-how could do to make life better.

Jacobstown was a little busier since the last time he'd been here. With word Doctor Henry's successful treatment of Nightkin psychosis and addiction there were mutants from all across the wastes flocking to the settlement at the urging of their other kin. Once little more than a herding community in a quiet mountain pass, Jacobstown was turning into a bustling settlement with a burgeoning population. Of course this also meant that it was inevitable that their population would start to expand, and have a more significant effect on regional affairs. It was Alaric's determination to see that their interactions would be positive and helpful for them both.

He coasted into town, his escort falling back at a gesture and waiting outside the walls as he slid in alone, the guards at the gate watching him warily, but recognizing him after a moment. It was amazing what helping ward off some troublesome mercenaries could do for your reputation in a town.

"Marcus! Good to see you. Hope you haven't been too overwhelmed lately. Looks like your little town is growing up." Alaric said as he saw the bulky mayor walking over towards him.

"Been busy, takes me back a bit with how many people we have showing up. With Black Mountain dispersed and the news of the Nightkin cure becoming widespread we're facing a major population boom in the near future."

Alaric nodded, walking beside the big mutant. Rather than a fancy suit he was wearing more comfortable traveling clothes, and keeping a rather more humble appearance. "Are you able to support this many people? The town looks like standing room only." He pointed out. Once just a ski lodge, the place had never been that big in the first place. The increased population was straining it to its limits from what he could see.

Marcus turned and gave him a sideways glance. "I've been around for a while Alaric, dealt with NCR, Brotherhood, and more than a few would-be rulers. I've met people who talked like you before, baiting hooks and teasing out facts. I've been listening to the radio so I know this is far from a social call."

Inwardly, Alaric cursed. He should have known better than to try and play Marcus like he played most everyone else. The mutant was too smart, and too old to fall into his verbal traps. That thought made him pause for a moment, was he so used to manipulating people that he found it honestly difficult to be sincere? He dismissed it, he was doing this to help people and sometimes to do that you had to know what made others tick, how to trick someone into thinking your idea had been theirs all along, or offering up the price needed to get their approval as if they'd thought of it first. Still, he shouldn't deal like that with Marcus, he respected him too much.

"No offense intended, I'm just worried about you is all. Usually when my kind and yours start to rub against each other it ends badly. I don't want to see that happen, not here."

The entered the ski lodge itself, Marcus pointing to the stairs. "Let's go someplace private." He said, leading him off to an office, big windows overlooking the field below and all the milling mutants there. "I've heard the news on the radio, and gotten word from scouts. You're putting together a new nation. Truth be told you remind me of Shady Sands, back when the NCR was getting its start."

Alaric tried to hide how much it rankled him that Marcus evidently had scouts and spies in his territory, and how casually he had mentioned it. He realized that it was probably a deliberate act to put him off balance, but it was still working despite knowing it. "No, not like the NCR. They grew on a hunger for land and resources, manifest destiny. You said yourself that they kept rolling over people and it would backfire. Well you were right, the Mojave threw them out for all their trouble. So I'm not here as a would-be ruler, I'm just trying to keep the people here safe." He sighed, looking out the window. "World's changing Marcus, we can't just focus on making one town secure, there's armies and nations out there hungry for land."

The mutant put his hands behind his back, looking out the window as well. "And what exactly do you propose? The wasteland has never been a gentle place to live. Many have claimed to have the solution to making it better, my existence is the result of one such vision. NCR, Enclave, Legion, the Master himself, they all thought they carried the vision to make the wasteland a better place, to usher in a better future. They've all come and gone and history has not been kind to them."

Alaric sighed. "The difference is that I don't want to remake the world, just this one little corner of it. A city-state centered on New Vegas, keeping the Mojave safe and stable. I don't want to expand to the Atlantic like the NCR, or subjugate everyone around me like Caesar, or purify the world like the Enclave. I just want to make my home a safer place. I came here to ask for your help in doing that."

Marcus seemed almost bemused at how strongly Alaric was insisting how righteous his cause was. "Depends on what you mean by 'help'. NCR once welcomed us into their society as well, but they only saw how large and strong we were and wanted us in their army. Then after a while they grew to resent us, there's been an exodus from NCR territory for my kind ever since politics started turning against my people. Here we have a place of our own, a place where we can live peacefully and let others go on with their lives. They will want to know why we would join anyone else."

"Because you can't just sit here and do nothing forever." Alaric pointed out. "You've becoming a rallying point for your people, more are flocking here constantly from what my scouts tell me. You need food, space to grow. But more than that you need acceptance." Marcus raised a brow at this. "That was the idea behind Broken Hills after all right? Get rid of enmity and paranoia by having people living together? I want that on a grander scale. I don't want your people as soldiers, though they are welcome there. I want integration, for us to live side by side as equals. Human, ghoul, mutant, I don't care. You know as well as I do Marcus that if you isolate yourself then resentment and conflict become inevitable. You have a lot more to gain from this than I do, your future is on the line here, not mine."

The old mutant stared out the window at his settlement for a good long while, his gaze drifting over the name painted on the old resort sign. "I'll need some time to think about this. Feel free to stay in town while I consider what you've said. But don't go spreading rumors or trying to turn people to your way of thinking, I'll deal with my people in my own way, once I've considered everything you've said."

Alaric nodded, turning to the door. "Of course, I'm not base enough to try and turn your people against you, I trust your judgement and your experience. Besides, I have some friends I'd like to visit while I'm here."


	4. A Day at the Races

"It's just so nice for you to come and visit." Said a voice like crushed concrete in the most warm, adoring tone possible. "I know you've been busy, but I do so appreciate seeing you around."

Alaric smiled. "It's nice to see you too, Lily. It's a very nice change of pace for me, it's been too long." He held out his teacup as the doting Nightkin held a porcelain teapot very gently, hands that could crush a helmet daintily gripping the delicate ceramic as she poured for them both.

"That's nice dearie. Marcus told me all about what you're trying to do, and I think it's a great thing. You've always done everything you could to help people, such a nice boy." She sat down across the table from him, holding a teacup that looked comically tiny in her massive hand, its handle pinched between thumb and forefinger.

"Yes, I suppose I have. Still, it was a lot easier back when we wandered the wastes together, then we could just take care of the bad guys and be heroes. Now it's a whole lot more complicated. Never thought I'd be trying to write a tax code." He said with a shudder.

Lily nodded, emptying the teacup in one dainty sip. "Oh I know it's hard, and I did enjoy helping you smash all the bad guys. But it's always harder to build things than to break them."

Alaric smiled, she always did help him cheer up. And he was glad to see her doing alright. "How have you been feeling?" He asked casually.

Lily chuckled good naturedly. "Oh, so like you to always worry over me. Doctor Henry has been helping me a lot. I've been feeling a lot better lately. Leo has been quiet and I can finally get some peace of mind without worrying about him."

"And… your memory?" He asked as calmly as he could.

Lily smiled again, slightly melancholic though. "Clearing up, finally. I remember… a few things I wish I didn't. But all in all better to remember a life than forget it. I owe you a lot for helping Doctor Henry figure out how to help me and everyone else. I was so confused before I'm surprised you let me travel with you for so long, and do so many important things."

He waved a reassuring hand. "You were always a great help, and a great comfort to me. You have always been very nice to be around, and you helped me a lot when I most needed it, remember the fight at The Fort?"

She chuckled again, grandmotherly face showing more of the warrior she had been in another life. "That was a big fight, and a good one. I remember that, you probably helped a lot of people then. You know, you don't have to keep treating me like family. I know I was… confused before but I'm thinking a little clearer now."

Alaric was silent for a long moment, resting his hand against his head. He didn't realize but his fingers were tracing circles around the place where a pair of 9mm rounds had shattered his skull like an eggshell. "Ever since… Goodsprings… I don't really remember much of what happened before. Flashes, images, but it's all broken up and fragmented, blobs of color and sound. I don't remember if I have a family, I could be a father for all I know. Whoever I was before is dead, dead and buried, I wouldn't remember my family if I met them again, if they're even around." He broke into a warm smile. "Let's say that… I needed a grandmother as much as you needed a grandson."

Lily didn't have anything to say to that, she just beamed warmly at him and poured another cup of tea.

XXXXX

After finishing their tea and talking for a while longer, they had parted with a bone-crushing hug and promises to visit again soon. Alaric walked a little lighter as he left Lily's cabin, visiting her always lifted his spirits, but she wasn't the only old friend he was here to see. He knocked on the door do another of the cabins just down the way, and after a moment the resident opened and looked him over, a flash of recognition in his eyes.

"You, I haven't seen you since, the first time." Dog said as he looked him over.

"It's good to see you again, I'm glad you found this place alright. May I come in?" He asked politely.

"Oh, of course." The Nightkin said, stepping aside and letting him enter his little cabin. Alaric hadn't seen the Nightkin since their confrontation in the basement of the Sierra Madre, when he had joined the two warring sides of the mutant's personality. It had brought him peace, but at the cost of his memories. He paused a moment, considering the differences and similarities between Dog's predicament and how he dealt with Lily's. With Lily he had advised she keep her memories at the cost of peace of mind, with Dog he had done the opposite. Was either really the right choice?

The mutant's bungalow was an interesting place. It was cozy in a way, overstuffed cushions in the corner. The rest of the space was taken up by seemingly random odds and ends, and lots of books and holotapes. In the corner a radio quietly played music. "You look like you've done pretty well for yourself."

The Nightkin nodded. "It took me a while to get here, but I didn't have much anywhere else to go. When you said there was a place for more like myself I knew I had to get here. I have you to thank for that." He saw Alaric studying the books piled around. "I've been trying to learn more about the world, I don't remember much of anything and ignorance can be dangerous."

"Yes, yes it can be. Have you healed alright? I know you took a lot of punishment in the Madre." The man said as he looked over some of the interesting trinkets and curios, seemingly collected because they just looked interesting.

"The Doctor spent hours pulling all the bullets and bits of blades out of me." He said, rolling his great shoulders as if remembering the splinters of metal being pulled from his flesh. "Uncomfortable but very worth it to be free of them, being free of the chains and that bear trap felt very liberating."

"I imagine it did." He said with a warm smile, remembering when he'd gotten his own collar off. At least the one he wore around his neck. "By the way, what should I call you? You had two names before."

The big mutant shrugged. "Dog, hard to call myself anything else when I have that carved into my chest, even if you can't see it." That was true, he now wore a huge vest of bighorner leather over his otherwise bare chest, supermutants often found it hard to get clothes that fit right.

"Alright then, Dog. I'm just glad to see that you're doing properly. Been listening to the radio?" He asked, nodding to the speaker.

Dog followed his gaze. "All the time, it helps to learn about the world outside this place. I want to get out there and see it for myself but I know everything is in turmoil right now." The mutant looked almost ashamed for a moment. "I heard about the battle at the Dam, I wish I had been there with you. You helped me to, exist. And I feel I owe you for what you did for me."

Alaric smiled. "No biggie, I like helping people." He said with a chuckle. "And you've had more than enough to keep you occupied."

"Yes, so much to learn, in so little time. I'm trying to get caught up on so many things and while I'm doing it things are developing even faster. I wonder if I'm missing history being written while I'm trying to read up on what's already happened."

Alaric sighed, a little melancholy. "Writing history is hardly as glamorous as poets like to describe it as. My advice my friend, just try to be a good person each day, don't worry about writing history. People who set out to write history rarely come to good ends, and history has a habit of seeking out people who never wanted anything to do with it."

Dog's eyes were shrouded as they watched him. His animal cunning and keen intellect had combined into a special kind of wisdom, and a formidable mind despite his lack of education and understanding. The mutant kept silent for now as he appraised the man standing before him.

"In any case," Alaric said as the quiet moment dragged on. "It's good to see you, I would have visited before now but I've been rather busy, as I'm sure you heard."

"If there's anything these books have taught me, it's that nation building is rarely easy. Nor is it ever quick. Rome was not built in a day, I believe is the saying."

Alaric laughed. "Rome, now there's a whole different topic altogether." He said, barking another laugh that had a twinge of sadness to it.

They talked for a few hours, two men without a past, talking of many things. Their damaged memories made for an interesting kinship, they understood each other in ways other's didn't, who took little things like remembering old friends, or birthdays, or the smell of a family dinner for granted. Eventually they said their goodbyes and Alaric walked back outside. The sun was dipping lower in the sky, but he wasn't tired in the least. Not wanting to stick around and be looked at by supermutants all day, he climbed one of the mountainsides to find a quiet little spot. There he sat, and in the seclusion of the mountains let himself think over all the issues that faced him. He was still deep in thought when dawn broke over the Mojave.

XXXXX

"So, you have considered my proposal?" Alaric asked from his seat across from Marcus, several other residents of the town spread around. They were in a large room in the main resort building, hardly a place for privacy but Marcus wanted this to be an open discussion.

"I have, and I'm willing to discuss it further with you." The old mutant replied. "I agree that continued isolation is impractical with the course our settlement is taking."

Well that was something, at least Marcus admitted that some course of action needed to be taken. Now he had to get him to see that his course was the best one. "You know my suggestion, become part of a new nation, be accepted by the Mojave."

There was general grumbling and shifting about the room. "The Mojave has not been the most welcoming to us in the past." Marcus pointed out. "Many of the residents here came because they were met with violence by the people you want us to lock arms with."

"Not all." Alaric countered. "In Vegas itself there's a community that praises and thanks a supermutant who lives there, he's their protector, helps keep the Fiends at bay. At least when the Fiends were around to harass them." It was a subtle display, he'd already removed the threats faced by one community, he could do the same for them.

"Yes, I've heard of that, but one positive case does not disprove a dozen negatives." Marcus countered.

"No, no it does not." Alaric said sadly. "Your people have been unjustly attacked over and over, and by people who should have welcomed you. You all have a lot to offer the world and I cannot stand the idea of intolerance and bigotry keeping you on the run, or locked up here doing nothing. Besides, most of the negative cases were due to an unfortunate mental condition that I hear you have come a long way in treating." It was another subtle jab, reminding them who had helped deal with that problem.

Marcus was thinking it over, nodding slightly. "That is true, without the concern of addiction there have been fewer incidents."

"Indeed, and where were the majority of those concentrated anyway? Black Mountain, which is now empty. Every horror story I've ever heard about your people had to do with that location, not Jacobstown. Even the Brotherhood of Steel has left this place alone because of their respect for you, and their understanding that you're not a danger." Alaric reasoned.

The old mutant was musing it over, he'd probably been thinking about some of these points over the night. "How would this integration work, what terms do you have to offer?"

Alaric smiled, he'd got the mutant on the hook. "Full and equal rights." He said magnanimously, spreading his hands as if to present a great wealth of something invisible. "Base human, ghoul, supermutant, all recognized as full citizens and fully sapient life forms and thus given equal consideration. Full freedom of travel, finance, equality before the government and law. Basically you'd be just like any other town, and your people treated the same as any other."

There was a little flare of hope in Marcus' eyes, just for a moment, before reason started to clench down on it. "And how can we trust that your position will not change? That your subordinates will keep to it? A lot of people will still fear us, and look down on my people."

"And that is never going to change unless you take action." Alaric drove home, turning the mutant's point back on himself. "Yes, this generation of people might look down on you, or be mistrustful, but what about the next? When the children of today grow up with you and yours being a part of their lives, living just the same as everyone else and being part of the same community? As for my followers, the core of my support comes from an army of unquestioningly loyal robots. If I tell them to treat your people the same as anyone else, they won't so much as blink. If they could blink, that is."

Marcus mulled it over, but the general feeling of the room was hopeful, eager even. There were a good number of residents here who were resentful of Marcus' desire to keep them penned in for their own safety. The possibility to get out and explore without being afraid, of seeing the world outside in more than surreptitious glances was liable to be very tempting.

"I think," Marcus began slowly. "That we can come to an understanding."

Alaric beamed. "Then name your requirements, and I will put my signature to them."

They continued to debate and discuss for hours more, through lunch and into early evening, but in the end they had a workable treaty set up for the peaceful integration of Jacobstown into the growing Vegas city-state. After they had each signed it, it seemed like a great weight had been lifted from Marcus, and he had to admit he felt the same. The last major township in the Mojave had signed up.

They continued to talk about less stressful topics later into the evening, discussing the issues faced by other governments in the post-nuclear world, as well as how to avoid the failings of the ones they had each observed. They spoke of the NCR and its well-meaning but flawed system, and of the Legion and its unsustainability. That was a more interesting and lively discussion, wondering at the issues and methods of a man who might lead such a movement.

Especially in light of what had happened to the last one to do so.

XXXXX

"You know, of all the things that we've done together, this is probably the most insane."

Alaric turned, lowering the binoculars he was holding, to look at Cass. "Oh? I thought that was running through the bombardment at Nellis?" He questioned, before looking back through the binoculars at the distant position of Cottonwood Cove.

"I did say 'probably'. And besides you used a tunnel then to get around the worst of it. This plan of yours, and I do say 'plan' lightly, is just to… what? Charge right up the middle through every single legionnaire in your way?"

He nodded. "You seem to have a sound grasp of it." Ignoring the choice curses she spat out, he continued. "I am going right up the middle, and I want you and Veronica at my shoulders the whole way."

"Figures. Well at least this will be a story to match dad's one way or another." She muttered.

Alaric grinned, though it couldn't be seen through his faceplate. "Boone, overwatch as best you can. The approach up the Fort isn't going to give us much cover so we'll need to get imaginative there. But here we've got plenty of high ground to play with, so I want you up high and picking off targets."

The sniper nodded. "Alright. I know a place."

"Good, Lily?" He asked, the befuddled mutant standing by.

"Yes dearie?" She asked sweetly.

"I need you to sneak into their command center, cut off their radio before they can call for help, can you do that for me please?"

"Of course dearie." She said with a nod. "I won't let any more bad men come after you."

"Thank you." Alaric said with a bow of his head. "Arcade, Raul, you two stick near us, provide whatever ranged support you can, I'll probably be in and out of melee the whole time. Veronica, you have to watch my back while I'm in close, and I'll watch yours."

The other two nodded, the martial scribe speaking up. "Well, never thought I'd see action this intense. Not since Helios anyway. Scribes aren't generally known for being at the middle of battles that turn the fates of nations."

"Scribes aren't generally known for punching people's heads clear off their shoulders." Alaric retorted.

"Fair." She said with a shrug.

Gannon turned from the scribe to look at Alaric. "Shame it had to come to this, Caesar could have built something amazing with the support his followers give him, but he chose to make another raider band. If he'd bothered to imitate Rome in something deeper than its language then today could have been very different."

Alaric shrugged. "It's all in the intention. It doesn't matter what old flag or name he's using, he's just another tyrant. He could have aped Persia, or China, or Old America and he would just be another bully looking to take what other people have, you said that much yourself."

"True, it takes something deeper than just a name or a flag to make you a worthy successor to a nation." The scientists words were thoughtful, reflecting. Alaric didn't push the issue, he knew the man was hiding something but at the same time he trusted him. Whatever it was, it could wait until he was ready to talk.

"Raul, you good? You're usually more talkative." He asked, looking to the last member of their little group.

"Just taking a moment to compose my last will and testament boss." The ghoul replied. "Does anyone here want my shack? I know you all have nicer houses, but a hovel's a home after all."

"What, think your path wound on for so long just to end here?" Alaric asked with a chuckle, before throwing on "Old man."

"No boss, I just thought some self-depreciating humor would help lighten the tone." He said just as seriously. "I know full well I'm going to outlive all of you by a very long time, which is to mean any time after today."

Alaric shook his head, chuckling. "Just keep that Big Iron handy and we'll be fine." He said, clipping the binoculars back at his belt.

"Alright people, we've got a job to do, and no use wasting time." He raised laser rifle, flicking on the sighting system. "Time to go reenact a little Shakespeare." He said with satisfaction as the noonday sunlight glinted off of his T-51b's plating.

XXXXX

Aurelius of Phoenix stood upon a balcony, overlooking Cottonwood Cove. When he wasn't doing paperwork in his office, it was his preferred position where he could see all and more importantly, be seen by all. It was a direct and obvious message, that nothing in this encampment happened without his knowledge and permission. His position there was symbolic of the Legion's pride, wearing the armor of defeated foes, light glinting off of metal plates and captured medals. His unwavering gaze watched over his command and all within it, standing above all the slaves, worker and soldier alike, unyielding and indomitable.

He was as symbolic in death as he had been in life. As a .50 BMG round connected with his head, the kinetic force causing his helmet to cave inwards and his head to explode like a melon, catapulting his body down amidst the stunned and shocked legionaries below. His pride in his position was his death sentence, standing higher than the rest made him a target, his dramatic crested helmet might as well have been a crosshair on his head. He had stood in defiance of Caesars enemies, of all the world that stood against them. And he had stood in ignorance of the weapons that so easily circumvented his otherwise sound security measures, the reconditioned tribals having limited experience with the mechanics of extreme long range ballistics. High up on a ridge, a former NCR soldier worked the bolt of his big rifle, a gently smoking casing falling to the rocks with a little 'clink'.

Shouts of alarm began to sound in the camp. The cries of men, the baying of hounds, the ringing of bells, sounds of discord and panic, but purpose as well. The legionnaires were nothing if not disciplined, they had drilled and drilled and drilled these routines, where to run, what lanes of attack to secure. They were well trained in their general ignorance and a formidable force, but an unwieldy one. The average legionnaire has very limited tactical acumen, they were trained to obey their superiors, obedience without question was the watchword of the Legion. They were after all a slave army, and if they started thinking too independently then they might rise up, or refuse to follow orders.

Such thinking had its advantages but it also made them vulnerable. The Rangers had made that vulnerability very clear at the Battle of Hoover Dam, but they hadn't changed at all since then. Now Boone was making that lesson painfully clear to them a second time. He looked for the obvious symbols of rank, elaborate headdresses, decorated armor, complex weapons. Whenever he saw them he sighted in, took a breath, found his moment, and squeezed the trigger. One by one the officers who tried to bring order to the chaos found their ends, viscera splattering messily over the hard packed earth.

"Charge!" Alaric shouted, pointing forwards for extra impact as they began their rush. His four companions were all clad in slate-grey metallic armor from head to toe. T-45d was the oldest and most primitive form of power armor ever to see mass production, but despite its issues with heat dissipation and limited joint flexibility, it was still a powerful asset. Alaric's own suit of T-51b was far superior, in both protection and agility, but such things were fabulously rare outside certain groups. Even the lesser armors of his companions had taken great lengths of time and a not insubstantial amount of wealth to collect in preparation for this action. Also with him was the floating orb of ED-E, and the loping semi-metallic form of Rex, both loyal to the end.

The defenses of Cottonwood Cove were significant, dozens of legionnaires in defensive positions, but Alaric had planned this assault carefully. There was a little ridgeline overlooking the Cove, an overlook with a few old longhouses on it. It provided an overlook position to the camp, but the cliff down was rocky and treacherous. Guarded, but not as much as the advances into the camp proper. The plan was daring but he had every faith in his companions.

The steady booming of Boone's rifle up on the far ridge provided the drumbeat tempo to their advance as Alaric held his laser rifle up, holding the weapon moderately steady in his hands as his companions advanced alongside him. They saw the first legionnaires up ahead as they took the climb up towards the overlook, the red-clad soldiers shouting word of intruders as they raised their weapons. What with all the shouting in the air already it was highly unlikely anyone in the main compound heard them.

Raul shot first, a big bullet punching clean through the metal plates of the first soldier's armor, his armor red on red as he fell. The old ghoul worked the lever on the 45-70 rifle, chambering the next round. The next man died as a green bolt of plasma turned his armor to char and slag, his smoking body curling and collapsing like a burned match. Arcade swept with his plasma rifle, keeping mental track of the shots still left in the power cell.

The other two watchmen died as brilliant cyan lances of light vaporized their upper torsos. Laser weapons were always counted amongst the deadliest weapons in the wasteland, at least for their size, but the one in Alaric's hands was deadlier than most. The AER 14 was a prototype even before the war, taking its power from the more potent Electron Charge Packs to produce a more powerful beam. It might have been a game changer if it hadn't come too late for the old world. But ever since he'd pulled it from a rusted hulk of a bunker Alaric had put it to good use.

They took the slope up to the overlook quickly, and soon they were overlooking the camp below, the sea of swirling crimson making him think of a fire ant hill that someone had kicked. Fearing a conventional attack by a large force, the Legion troops had massed at their rehearsed defensive positions, rifles and pistols watching down the roads that they expected the NCR attack to come down. They hadn't secured the high ground, still not used to fighting enemies with such an intimate command of long range warfare.

"See you at the bottom!" Alaric said with a laugh, his heart hammering in his chest as he ran up to the cliff and launched himself over the side.

He fell, one heart-stopping moment that stretched and slowed as gravity fought against his momentum, dragging him downwards. With a scrape and thud he connected with the rocks of the cliff face, holding his weapon one handed as his other armguard scraped across the rocks, desperately trying to stabilize his descent. Power armor could take the impact and kept the cliff from scraping him like sandpaper, but if he took an uncontrolled tumble he could end up with a twisted arm or a snapped neck.

He bounced and rattled down the cliff, dislodging a small cascade of stones and dirt with his reckless descent. He did not so much hit the ground and roll across it, spinning like a log once or twice before clattering to a stop. The world was spinning around him, all his senses jumbled and in revolt against the madness he'd just put them through. His eyes blinked, trying to find which way was up, his sense of balance was spinning like a compass next to a magnet, he could vaguely hear hysteric laughter and after a moment realized it was his own.

Climbing to his feet and sweeping with his laser rifle, he scanned for threats before glancing up to the cliff. To his deep disappointment his companions had elected to take a slower, more cautious route down, hopping from ledge to ledge and letting their armored legs take the impacts. "Come on!" He shouted. "I haven't got all day!"

He did however wait for his companions to finish their descent, hunkering down in cover behind one of the barracks. Their plan had worked, at least stage one. The Legion was used to fighting tribal states and other minor powers, they thought in the old ways of war, of maneuver on open plains, of the clash of massed armies in the hundreds on the wide fields. They had their assassins yes, but small unit tactics, special operations, it was beyond most of them. And the ones who could have seen the danger for what it was were too busy having their favorite organs removed courtesy of a .50 caliber rifle. Reckless as the plan had been, they were in and behind the Legion lines.

"Okay, we're almost out of time, we need to move on the primary objective!" He said urgently.

"I'm surprised you didn't break your neck!" Cass said, clutching her riot shotgun. "Now I'm sure you've got a deathwish."

He shook his head, ears still ringing from the clattering fall. "I assure you I will have a very clever quip to rebut that later, in the meantime we have things to do, people to kill, come along now!"

Ignoring the choice swearing, and really Cass was an expert in the field, Alaric rushed out from behind the blockhouse and rushed towards the HQ building, and the accompanying slave pen. Well, it seemed like whoever was directing the Legion wasn't a complete fool, or perhaps it was just random chance the a squad of the red-clad soldiers had doubled back towards the command center. These were tougher customers though, an elite unit rather than the rookies left to guard the flank.

"Take them down!" He ordered, bringing his rifle to bear. The holographic sight hovered in the air over the weapon's blocky body and he snapped off a few shots, sending brilliant beams into the air near the squad leader, before the man ducked behind cover. Alaric cursed in the privacy of his helmet, they had taken up position on the HQ building, that gave them cover and the high ground. "Suppress them, Veronica with me!" He said as he charged.

He didn't bother shooting. Running at full tilt would spoil his aim to uselessness but he only had a few seconds to cover the ground before him. Alaric slung the laser rifle over his shoulder, letting it hang by the strap as he neared the blocky building before him, vaguely aware of Veronica several meters behind him straining to keep pace with his mad charge. Her more primitive armor restricted her movement, but even if they had been equally equipped she would have been hard pressed, There were very few indeed who could keep pace with him.

His body jerked as lead rounds flattened themselves on his metal plating, each one made his heartrate spike a little faster and left his ears ringing as his suit resounded like a bell. His eyes swept across the Legion troops and judged their weapons. A .357 revolver, a big bore lever action, an SMG spitting out rounds. He'd lost sight of the enemy leader, where had he gone? Any one of those guns could kill him, if the user was lucky enough to put a round through the gap between the helmet and chestpiece, a small target but luck was blind.

Time stretched as he stared wide eyed into the yawning mouths of the gun barrels, he could almost see the traces the bullets left in the air. Then he was through and at the foot of the building. To slow his pace he brought his foot up and slammed it into the chest of the wide eyed man who had been shooting at him there, driving his broken ribs back through his lungs and sending him flying.

His right hand flew to his hip holster, drawing his 1911, the .45 auto pistol reassuring and familiar in his grip. The man with the SMG turned, slotting another magazine of 10mm ammo home, his hand on the slide. Alaric shot him twice in the chest and let him slump over the side of the platform as he rose up the staircase. He looked around as he rose to the platform where he'd last seen the legion officer, halfway up the last flight of stairs. Dimly hearing a woman's voice shouting his name, he looked to the side, just in time to see a Centurion swinging a super sledge at his head.

Alaric turned, trying to get inside the reach of the large weapon. A direct hit would cause grave injury at the very least, it could well kill him. He was just barely fast enough, the haft of the weapon slamming into his shoulder near the neckline, making him jar and shake. The weapon's kinetic impact head discharged at an angle across his back, shaking and shocking him, but he wasn't dead, and he didn't think anything was broken.

He brought his gun hand around, aiming for the leg, but a kick from the Centurion's booted foot deflected the barrel just enough that the round flew uselessly past his opponent to bury itself in the dirt. Still, his strength was superior, and his mind fast and sharp. The Legion officer had overbalanced himself, swinging low with a heavy weapon. He grabbed the haft with his free hand to prevent him from pulling back and heaved on the handle, pulling the Centurion off his feet and throwing the man over the railing to fall to the earth below.

Alaric vaulted over the railing after him, meaning to crush him like an insect but the other man rolled just to the side, quickly vaulting to his feet and swinging with the hammer again, catching Alaric in the side. The impact battered him back and left him ringing like a struck gong. If he tried to shoot in this condition he might well leave himself open to a killing blow, better to engage in close combat. He reached behind himself with his left hand, gripping the haft of his close combat weapon, and flicked it out.

The axe blade was shining steel, the haft a sturdy composite, light and fast and he held it easily in one hand, the long fire axe giving him good reach. The Legionnaire swung again but Alaric's blade was faster than the cumbersome hammer. He hooked the axe head around the hammer's haft and pulled hard, dragging the surprised man off balance. With a hacking, bloody cough the officer's lungs were emptied as a power armored knee slammed into his gut, before he stumbled back. His mouth opened, he might have been about to say something, but before he could Alaric snapped up the axe's head and brought it down, cleaving his head in two.

There was movement behind him and he turned fast, axe raised in a striking pose, making Veronica jump.

"Eek!" She squeaked as he saw her, his heart hammering so much adrenaline through his system that it took him a split second to realize what had happened.

"Sorry." He managed to choke out after a moment, mind making a catalogue of the aches and pains in his body, the flushed heat on his skin as he sweat into the suit, the almost painful beating of his panicked heart. "Are you okay?" He managed to stammer after a deep breath.

"Fine, you made it easy, I can't believe you did that." To Alaric it has just been a panicked charge, half thought out and barely planned. But Veronica had watched from a few feet behind as he butchered his way through the defenders, what had seemed like frozen agonizing eternity to him had been a few brief seconds to her. From where she stood they hadn't had a chance. "I don't think they got a message out, now we just have to deal with that army." She said, gesturing with her power fist over towards the great mass of rather confused Legion troops wondering why the expected NCR army had failed to appear.

"Army… Right." He said, shaking his head, purging the wild predator from his system.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked, taking a step forward.

"Fine!" He snapped, making her flinch. "Sorry, I'm fine, just jumpy." He said, breath rattling in his chest as he finally got over the adrenaline rush. "Not every day I almost get splatted by an angry skirted man." He said, knowing he could rely on her wry humor to smooth over the bump. "Now, let's finish things." He said, replacing his pistol and axe and pulling up his grenade launcher.

A few feet away Arcade was melting the lock off the slave pen with his plasma pistol, waving the trapped civilians out. "Get moving and keep your heads down, we're not safe here yet." He said, unlocking their collars with a key he pulled off a thankfully mostly intact Legionnaire.

Alaric opened the door into the command center. "Lily, you ready to go?" He asked, seeing the mutant commando shimmer into the visible spectrum.

"All ready dear, I didn't let any of those nasty men call for help." He could just see a few booted feet poking out from behind a stack of crates, evidently a few at least had tried to go for the radio only to find her lying in wait.

"We need to put an end to this." He said, readying his weapon as she followed him out. "Get their attention!" He ordered, waving towards the enemy horde. Arcade looked nervously to him.

"You're sure about this?" He asked, his voice unsteady despite his usual calm humor.

"No choice." Alaric said grimly, shouldering the four shot launcher as his companions turned and opened fire.

There were a little over twenty Legion troops still covering the entrance to the camp, beginning to waver and wonder what was going on. There was no assault, no army, no enemy to face them, even the booming rifle had fallen silent as its operator melted back into the desert haze. The whole attack had only been going on for a few minutes, there had been no time to realize something else was going on, until they heard more gunfire behind them.

They had thought perhaps there was a flanking attack that the other guards were dealing with, but then their own numbers started dropping, tracers and glowing balls of green light were shooting into their backs and flying past them, coming from inside their own encampment, from the very center of their defenses! The Legionnaires turned, seeing the fire was coming from their own command center, someone had taken up firing positions on it and was using it to lay into them.

While a good number of them were armed with close combat weapons, or other simple guns, and they very obviously had the disadvantage in positioning being on a large open space facing entrenched defenders, they turned and began to charge without hesitation. Aggression in all things, disregard for the chance of death, to destroy the enemy at all costs to themselves and others, thus was the creed of the Legion. They should have ran the opposite direction.

Raising the barrel of the China Lake launcher, Alaric judged the position of the largest mass of Legion troops, before he squeezed the trigger. A fat, projectile launched with an anticlimactic 'thump' towards the sea of charging crimson, burning hot white and trailing vapor. Several meters above the ground it exploded with a sharp crack, raining a sea of fire down on the charging men, who's battle cries turned into screams.

Alaric raced the slide, chambering another round. Three more times his weapon coughed, launching three more airbursting white phosphorous rounds, the horrid chemical flames were like a little piece of the sun being dropped on whoever was unfortunate enough below. The smell burned the lungs and the heat seared anything nearby, leaving a scorched plain on the ground before him, the dead troops melting and curling like burned grass.

"Makes sure there's nothing left." He said, turning and going to check over the prisoners. Cottonwood Cove was a major military position, an entirely legitimate target, a keystone of the Legion slave trading operation, taking it down was a major blow against them, and the second phase of his plan was complete. Their small team had done in a few minutes what the entire NCR army had failed to do for years, it was a laudable victory. It tasted like ashes.


	5. Pollice Verso

In about half an hour they had freed the penned slaves and rescued what crucified captives they could, sending them limping up the road towards Camp Searchlight and the NCR garrison there. Hopefully they could find their ways back to wherever they came from before the Legion showed up to ruin their lives, but you never really knew, at least they'd done their best to help them out. Now Alaric and his little team were floating their way down the river on a large raft, thankfully just able to support their armored weights.

The only one apart from Lily not in power armor was Boone, who instead wore a dark colored stealth suit covered in tactical rigging and pouches. He'd exchanged the big bore .50 cal for a .308 semi-auto marksman rifle, which would give him a little more flexibility in the likely frantic fighting they were looking forward to once they reached their destination.

Alaric let out a long breath as he looked down the river. Fortification Hill, the war camp of the Legion, seat of Caesar himself. He had often wondered what kind of man could create a society like the Legion, who could bastardize one of the great civilizations of history to give legitimacy to a horde of barbarians who took pride in slavery, rape and wanton cruelty as the cornerstones of their lives. What could he look like, this man who had reduced entire civilizations to dust and not only saw every other living human being as a disposable tool to further his glory, but trained them to see themselves that way and thank him for doing it to them.

Some kind of scheming villain perhaps, or a brutal monster who towered over others. Would he speak with a voice that boomed like thunder, or one that whispered with a serpent's envenomed tongue? He couldn't know, he'd never seen the man, but he couldn't help but feel that Caesar was the great shadow that hung over his life. Almost everything that had gone wrong was in some way, directly or indirectly, due to this one man and his ambitions. War, strife, destruction on a massive scale, so much of the misery he had seen was carried out on his orders. It was hard not seeing this as a great mission, almost holy if you believed in such a thing, a company of knights going off to kill the great black dragon on the mountaintop.

"You're lost in thought again." He heard Boone say from beside him.

He turned his helmeted head to regard the recon sniper, who was giving his weapon a last check over before they arrived at their destination.

"Your body language gives you away, even in that armor. You get distant, start seeing things that aren't there." The man continued, methodically checking over the long rifle, before inspecting the magazines he held in his tactical pouches.

"Just thinking about what we're doing, and what it might mean. How the world might change." He said, looking out over the waters.

"It won't." Boone said simply.

"You seem very certain of that."

"Caesar has generals and successors in place, killing him won't stop the Legion from charging at Hoover Dam, it won't make the Legion just go away and stop ruining lives. A few things might change but you can't make the world turn back by killing one man, even if he was to blame."

"You make it sound pointless." Alaric said, grimacing in the privacy of his helmet. "He needs to be taken down, at the very least it will destabilize the Legion in the leadup to the next battle. You know as well as I that it's going to happen soon."

"If president Kimball had been shot that day, not much would have changed. The soldiers, the officers, everyone would still be here doing their job. When you cut off the head the snake does not die, it just gets confused for a minute before it grows another one and carries on like nothing happened. He's a twisted bastard, deserves to die, but you're deluding yourself if you think you can undo all the damage he's caused by pulling one trigger."

Alaric's helmet swiveled as he looked thoughtfully at the marksman. "I hear a lot of people talking about how snipers change history with one round, turning the tide of a battle by being in the right place at the right time."

"Turn the tide… Maybe." Boone said, his voice getting that distant, haunted quality it sometimes had. "Change things for a bit, maybe do a little good, but we can't push back the sea. It's too big, too much momentum, one act can't hope to change it, one man can't remake the world."

Alaric drummed his fingers on the stock of his laser rifle, contemplating the days to come. "Perhaps you're right, and one man can't change the world. But if enough people could be brought together…" He saw the marksman starting to give him one of those looks, the kind that bored through the opaque visor he wore and through Alaric's armor. "We're almost there." He said, stalling the conversation before it could proceed. "We all know the plan, such as it is."

"Go in shooting." Boone summed up. "And don't stop until Caesar is dead."

He didn't need to add 'or we are' to the end, that was an assumed given. Suddenly the boat seemed too small, the ride too short, Alaric realizing that this could be the last time he sees this group alive and together. Come tomorrow their number might be fewer, it might be none at all.

"I…" He said, trying to find the words. "I just wanted to say that I appreciate you all being here." He began. "I don't have anyone else in the world, it's more than I could have hoped for to have you all with me."

Veronica clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't get sappy on us now." She chided, making him chuckle.

"We're with you, might as well see this through, can't have dad looking down unfavorably now." Cass told him. Within the privacy of his helmet, Alaric smiled.

"Alright then, enough of this." He said, looking up to see their destination approaching. "We've got an Emperor to kill."

XXXXX

It was dark by the time they arrived, so the guards at the wharf leading up to The Fort could be forgiven their momentary confusion. There was no boat due to come up the river, no word had been had from the garrison at Cottonwood Cove so they were not expecting anything unusual. So it was rather odd when an empty supply barge floated down the river in front of them, bumping the occasional rock and slowly spinning in the current.

They gave each other an odd look, one of them joked that the Legionnaires up at the Cove must have bungled and let one of their rafts float away after forgetting to tie it off properly, and sent the most junior of the three Guards to go wading after it so they could taunt and mock their clumsy brethren later for their incompetence.

They were further amused when the recruit went wading off into the shallows, half swimming half jumping after the receding boat before they heard a loud splash. He must have tripped or stepped into a drop-off or done something else incredibly foolish, which was only cause for more mirth between the remaining two.

It was only when the recruit failed to respond to their catcalls that they began to grow concerned, if they lost one of their number to something so foolish as drowning himself in the river, they might be punished for their laxity and waste of resources. Figuring that it was probably best to investigate one of the pair grabbed a torch and started walking out into the shallow waters to investigate.

The torchbearer stopped, tapping the other's arm when he saw a glint of metal in the water. By the time they both turned back to look at it, they saw something straight out of the superstitious stories Legion troops sometimes told around campfires when the officers weren't in earshot. A metal man, its skin painted midnight black, was rising half out of the water, which ran over the hoses and rivets of its form. The torchbearer opened his mouth to speak, but didn't get a chance to say anything before the metal man from the river shot them both stone dead.

Alaric waded past the dead sentries, the rest of his team emerging from the water behind him, their sealed suits acting like SCUBA gear perfectly well, except for Lily who had bailed out further up the river and gone to infiltrate the base her own way. Campfires and people glowed red and orange on his HUD, the T-51b's infrared sensors painting them plain as day against the uniform greys and blues of cooling nighttime stone.

"Approach clear." He said calmly over his radio, keeping the sound-suppressed .45 'hush puppy' up as he crept towards the impressive, now unguarded gate. Power armor was hardly the best thing to try and sneak about in, but at least trying to get the drop on people was better than just charging in mindlessly, if they could preserve stealth for as long as they could it would make their job much easier.

"Pity we can't sneak by all of them." Arcade remarked, his plasma rifle powered down to prevent it glowing.

"Make no mistake why we are here." Alaric reminded, "This is an extermination. No Legionnaire gets out of this fort alive, we're not just here for one man."

"Tall order." Was all the scientist soldier said as they continued advancing. Alaric had studied the layout of the Fort as best he could from vantage points on Hoover Dam, so some elements of the layout was known to him. But a little forward recon was never a bad thing, so he waves his hand and Boone faded into the darkness like a ghost as he conducted scouting up the approach.

"Nine guards, spread out." Came the simple, clipped remarks from the sniper. "Smart, not standing next to the fires, their night vision will be good, don't think we can stay quiet for long."

"We'll do what we can, same formation as before. Watch each other's backs, we'll pull them in close where their numerical advantages won't be so overpowering, close assault and keep moving, if they pin us down in one place they'll try to overrun us and I'm not sure even we can handle all that together."

Little else needed to be said, they all knew what they were up against here, the single biggest fortification that the Legion had, the elite units they were holding in reserve to assault the Dam while their more junior members played at being wolf packs out in the Mojave. The only other installation that rivaled this one was Dry Wells, and for better or worse that wasn't a problem anymore. In any case, they were essentially fighting an army tonight.

Maybe the right man in the right place really couldn't make the difference, maybe he couldn't just reach out and pull the world to be whatever he wanted. But times and places like this were the balancing points where history could be tipped one way or another, and he thought that just maybe they could make it tip their way. "We're burning moonlight, let's go." He said, advancing towards the thermal blobs on his HUD that denoted the guard positions.

As stealth approaches went, this was nearly ideal. While the moon shone it wasn't as bright as it could be, the night was cloudy and overcast, and nothing had gone disastrously wrong thus far. Power armor however was far from something that you wanted to sneak in, even if you stayed perfectly still there was the gentle hum of cooling fans and pumps in the reactor, and turning those off would very quickly lead to more pressing concerns than being discovered by a sentry. Furthermore the helmet muffled sounds, so it was hard to tell sometimes if you had made a noise that could give your position away to a sharp eyed sentry. While the thermal vision was useful, it would have been better to also hear the sounds of the enemy, the quiet footfalls on gravel, the sounds of breath, that could tell you where someone was that you couldn't see.

Still, there were few people more skilled in the arts of stealth and concealment than Alaric was, but while the conditions were good, the layout of the compound were not very conductive to the quiet approach. There was only the one trail winding its way up the hill to the main camp at the top, no matter how quiet they tried to be it was inevitable that their presence would be discovered and all hell would be unleashed. It was just a matter of time, seeing how much of an advantage they could gain before things went pear shaped.

The sound of his pistol firing was hardly something to be heard at a distance, a quiet thump that could have been anything really, but the sounds of a fully armored soldier clattering to the ground in a dead heap was much more distinctive and difficult to ignore. Another sentry frowned, starting to walk over to where he had heard the noise, grabbing a torch as he came. As the light fell upon the boot of the fallen sentry there were another two thumps as rounds buried themselves in his chest. With a dying gurgle the Legionnaire dropped the torch and fumbled, trying to call an alarm before a power armored boot stamped on his head with a sickly crunch.

The situation was rapidly destabilizing, Alaric realized. The dropped torch had been seen, the heat blobs of the other sentries were moving in a more animated way, arms were pointing, weapons were drawn, things were about to get messy.

"The sentries at the gate are getting riled up." Boone said over the radio, having snuck off someplace that gave him a better vantage point. "They're moving to investigate."

"Start picking them off!" Alaric ordered, other hand straying to where his weapons hung about his back and waist, ready to draw something more deadly. "Everyone brace, we're about to go loud."

Boone opened fire, he'd picked his targets already by this point, isolated sentries, people at the back of the row, standing up on the towers, by the alarm bells that would signal the rest of the Legion to awake and charge to battle.

"Come on you bastards." Alaric hissed to nobody in particular. "Come on!"

He crouched into the cover of a rock outcrop, the rest of the team trying to huddle into cover, their grey armor blending into the nighttime stones well enough in the dark. He saw other figures approaching, searching with commendable diligence, torches and lanterns in hand as they inspected the surrounding area. He looked past them, the gate was still closed, and without that open there was no way into the Fort itself without trying to climb over the top of the wall whilst likely under attack.

He closed his eyes, breathed in and out slow and steady, trying to calm his beating heart, and took a chance. The Legionnaire at the head of the patrol barely had time to look up in surprise as a hulking gunmetal figure stood up from behind a nearby stone and raised his pistol. The man reacted quickly, shouting an alert to his team, as the giant figure fired his weapon with another dull thump.

There was no wet smack of lead meeting flesh, rather the sharp crash of breaking glass and twisting metal, the .45 round passing through the storm lantern the man was carrying. His cry of alarm turned into a scream of pain as burning fuel poured over him, transforming the sentry into a living torch as his arms pinwheeled, trying to put the flames out as his uniform caught alight. Noise, panic, alarm, perfect.

"Go loud!" He shouted as he emptied the magazine into the other soldiers, the slide locking back empty after he dropped another before the defending troops could respond with their own weapons. He felt the dulled impacts of the bullets flattening against the ceramic composite armor of his chestplate, each impact making his suit resound like a bell and drowning out the shouts of alarm, the ringing of bells and pounding drums from the main camp. As his friends engaged the remaining survivors of the Legion patrol, Alaric looked past them and allowed himself a grim, mirthless smile. The gate was opening.

Alaric blew past the remaining sentries, bowling one of them over in his rush. He finished unscrewing the sound suppressor from his pistol and slotted in a magazine of full powered rounds, before returning the loaded gun to his hip holster and reaching for his slung weapons, knowing each one by the weight and instinct that came from using them all so much. As the gate finished being dragged open by heaving slaves he charged up to the breach, seeing the phalanx of Legions troops there, ready to come pouring out.

Alaric slammed his shoulder into the cover of the gateway, bringing up his Thompson SMG, the big bore gun he'd brought with him from his time in Zion. Light, good stopping power, withering rate of fire, and rather compact compared to some of his long guns. He raked the front line of the Legion responders with the weapon, burning through ammo at a frightening rate and sending a hail of smoking brass casings pattering off the sheet metal of the gatehouse wall. The metal armor the Legion issued to its members was useful against very small pistols and melee weapons of most sorts, but it was not designed to deal with heavy firepower, simple metal plates couldn't stop something like the Thompson's .45 rounds.

But there were simply more Legionnaires than he had ammunition, and son his drum magazine ran dry. "People, a little help!" He cried out as he frantically dropped the spent magazine, snatching another from its clip on his belt as the wave of crimson uniformed warriors got their second wind and rushed at him, clambering over the bodies of their fallen comrades, trampling the dead and the dying to get at him faster.

He had just jammed the new magazine into its housing when he heard the repeated booming reports of the riot shotgun in Cass' hands barking into life, the powerful buckshot pouring out in a torrent towards the charging soldiers, raking a heavy toll, caving in chestplates, tearing open skin and perforating the front wave, but there were so many.

He stove in the chestpiece of the first man to get in reach with a power-assisted boot, buying himself just enough time to rack the charging handle on his firearm and practically sandblast the head off of the next Legionnaire to try to come at him with a blade, the shots close enough for the burned powder to scorch his uniform.

"How many are we looking at?" He called over the radio as his other companions joined with him, Raul's 45-70 rifle punching through multiple bodies with its overpowered rounds, Rex biting at legs and heels, ED-E zapping helmets with his precise fire.

"The whole camp is a hornet's nest, the entire garrison is coming at you." Boone said grimly, the only indication of his assistance in the battle being when a Legionnaire at the back of the line suddenly fell dead in the chaos and confusion.

"Lily! Now would be a good time for some kind of distraction!" He called, hoping the elderly Nightkin had been able to complete her part of the plan by this point.

"Just a moment dearie, I'm almost done." She said in a calm voice, like she was just hushing an impatient child waiting for a treat. The effect was strangely calming, despite the desperate situation.

In power armor as he was, Alaric was more than a match for any of these soldiers, and their weapons didn't have much chance of breaching his suit. But a blade slid beneath his helmet, or stabbing the inside of the elbow joint, that would take him down sure enough. Here in the press of bodies, the swarming multitudes could overrun his defenses, pin him down, and like an armored beetle covered in a hundred ants, they could kill him.

He let the Thompson fall on its leather sling, its next magazine emptied as well, and no time or space to reload. So he drew his axe and started swinging with great two handed chops. He shattered helmets with his elbows, snapped legs with crushing kicks and stamping footfalls, cleaved heads from shoulders and stove in breastplates with his axe, the head and haft running crimson and wet as he tore the enemy apart. Time slowed for him again, the world moving like it was trapped in molasses as he moved even faster, killing so fast that he had to jump forward to get to the next rank before the bodies fell.

And then he heard the thundering explosions back inside the camp. Though he couldn't feel the heat through his armor plating he felt the shockwave, sending the Legion troops tumbling and staggering as Lily completed her special assignment. A few blocks of C4 in the Legion's primary ammo dump made for a big chain reaction, and he could hear the roar of ignited fuel and secondary explosions.

"Sorry for making you wait sweetie, grandma had to shoo some of the little people away." He heard Lily say over the radio, and actually laughed. That explosion would have taken out a good chunk of their enemies, and it would be hard to marshal a proper defense in the chaos as the fires began to spread throughout the Fort.

The clouds were lit with a cherry glow as the inferno raged and grew. In the firelight Alaric looked like something out of a nightmare, his dark armor stained red with blood, gore-drenched axe in hand as his visor reflected the firelight. With more laughter on his lips he rushed the next wave, carving his way deeper into the Legion troops that stood in his way.

XXXXX

The Legion had put up their best defense at the gatehouse, once Alaric and his team had breached that defense and sowed terror and havoc in the defenders the advantage was steadily slipping from them. The Legion was a powerful force, but a ponderous one. They didn't have radios for every soldier, and their grunts were rigidly trained to follow orders. It was an army built for massed combat on the field, hundreds of men on each side lining up and marching them towards each other. Each red clad soldier was akin to a piece on a game board, unthinkingly obedient, unflinching in the face of their own death, willing to march bravely into any sacrifice and that kind of force was very deadly when directed by a skilled player.

But tonight there was no player at the board, and all the little pieces were running about pell-mell trying to figure out what to do. The fires had spread, jumping from tent to tent, the ammunition storehouse continued to roar and shoot off burning ordinance that started fires someplace else. Most of the slaves outside their sealed pens had fled, some of them led away by Lilly before she had set off her explosives. And as The Fort burned, Alaric and his team continued killing. Their assault had bogged down into dozens of little skirmishes that lasted only a few moments each, in the constant chaos the Legion couldn't muster its troops properly.

The roar of the flames and continuing explosions drowned out the voices of any who thought they could bring order to the chaos, the light of the blaze ruined night vision with half the Fort afire and half in long shadows, the choking smoke robbed soldiers of their strength. Encased in power armor, with radio links, light filtering night vision systems and air filters, the invaders suffered none of these disadvantages. They moved in teams of two now, though to be true Alaric wasn't entirely sure what his companions were doing by this point, only that they were okay and still fighting. He had ED-E and Rex with him, the others taking care of themselves.

He checked his HUD, ED-E's sensors marking a nearby cluster of targets as the spherical robot flew above the choking smoke and flames to give him a bird's eye view of the Fort around him. Nodding to himself, he moved towards the group, six men who had come together to try and piece together a plan. He couldn't hear anything but the roaring outside his helmet, like a powerful wind, as he walked through a tent reduced to an inferno. A dark gauntlet reached out of the flames and grabbed one of the Legionnaires by the throat, skin sizzling as the hot metal touched it. The man screamed as he was dragged back into the flames and thrown aside before a giant in smoking plates with eyes of fire leapt from the inferno and began swinging his axe. The fight did not last long.

A minute later he swung his axe again, hewing the padlock from the slave pen before him. "Go, go, go!" He shouted at the terrified slaves within, his armor gently smoking and splattered with blood, he must look like a demon. "You are free now! Go to the wharf and wait, you will be safe there!" He ordered, throwing his full 'voice of command' into it, the primal bark of authority that made someone with no idea what to do obey like an order from god. They ran, half in terror and half in hope that their long suffering might be over. This last act of kindness done, Alaric turned and walked up the hill towards the great tent that stood at the highest point of Fortification Hill.

There were no guards outside of the tent, they must have already gone down into the fires to try and contain the attack. The problem with fighting a small force in such a chaotic environment was that it was almost impossible to tell where you enemy was, they just ran around looking until they ran straight into a pair of angry people in power armor, and that was that. But here he would not have the element of surprise, so he would just have to rely upon shock and awe.

He drew a flamer pistol, a small thing with a very limited fuel supply, and fired a burst at the front of the tent, setting the canvas afire in an instant. The little weapon spent, he stowed it again at once before drawing his 1911 and axe once again. Seven rounds and a good blade, hopefully enough to do the job, and no time to wait for backup. If his friends came to help the Legion might rally and if they had their determination back, and organized, they couldn't take that kind of overwhelming force on their own. So it fell to him to cut the head from the serpent while his companions occupied the body as it burned and writhed. With a last deep breath Alaric swiped the smoking cloth door aside and rushed into Caesar's tent.

Little red triangles were overlaid onto his HUD, marking the positions of the Praetorian Guards inside, at least some of them. ED-E was floating silently a few dozen feet over the tent watching the whole scene, so whoever was not under cover had their positions marked. Alaric shot the first one through the cloth wall before he could step into the open. With a rousing battlecry the others, the elite guard of Caesar came rushing towards him along with their pack of dogs, the first of which was intercepted by Rex who seemed more like a half-furred missile at this point.

With a mental command Alaric again activated his GRX implant, making time stretch and slow like it was caught in amber, the quick charge of the Praetorians slowing as his body overclocked on the perfectly tailored combat stims flooded his bloodstream. Ballistic fists, a shotgun shell strapped to a nasty brass knuckle, one big punch before you had to reload it. Certainly a nasty weapon, though he would have prioritized giving the elite guard better headgear, or rather any headgear.

With time itself temporarily giving him unfair advantages, Alaric snapped up his pistol and put three carefully aimed rounds between the eyes of the closest attackers, ignoring them now as their momentum continued to carry their bodies forwards. Time snapped back to its usual tempo which now seemed super-fast compared to the near stasis of his stimulated rush, three more men charged at him, not seeming to notice or care about their comrades seemingly simultaneous deaths.

He fired three more times, emptying the magazine on the pistol to drop the nearest, then slashing up with the axe to catch the hand of the nearest man behind that, ruining it in a bloody mess. He brought up his armored boot between the man's legs, dropping him as surely as if he'd cut off his head. Pushing the stunned Praetorian aside, he looked for the last man, just as he felt a fist connect with his chestplate and the kick of a shotgun at point blank. His HUD went dark, the radio died in an electronic screech and his limbs felt heavy and sluggish. It took him a moment to realize what had happened, the shotgun tube on the fist had to be loaded with a pulse slug. He fought against the deadened suit, weighing him down as the man quickly worked to reload his weapon, before a hailstorm of crimson bolts hit him about the head and shoulders, scorching him an ugly black and sending the scorched body tumbling. ED-E zoomed down, looking at him and giving a worried warble.

"Don't worry, I'm alright." He said, as his suit rebooted and his HUD flickered back on. "There, all better." There was another warble, and the robot dipped lower. He looked down to where the fist had connected, seeing the hole in his armor, and the trail of blood leaking down from it. "Shit." He cursed, touching the wound gingerly. It wasn't horrible, the slug had lost most of its energy punching through the armor, but he was bleeding. "I'll be fine, I've had worse." He said truthfully, reloading his pistol and marching deeper into the tent.

Caesar, for this had to be him, stood in the center of his burning fortress, a look of pure hatred on his face. His hands were clenched into fists, his lips curled into a snarling grimace, his eyes boring holes through Alaric's armor.

"How dare you." He growled, quaking with rage. "How dare you do this, to think that you could stand against history, a damned mailman coming before me, after everything you have done? Do you know what you have destroyed, the only hope for civilization, the only way to lead mankind out of the dark ages, dashed on the rocks. Now, now you come before me, I hope you fully realize the crime you have committed, what you've taken away from history."

As the man continued to rant and rage at him, Alaric stood speechless. This, this was Caesar. This was the man who had people crucified and beaten to death for his amusement, this was the man who executed entire civilizations on a whim, this was the man who made rape and torture into legitimate forms of entertainment in his lands simply because he could. This was the despot who had conquered a good chunk of the former US and made a great army of slaves to further his own name, who sought to spread his tyranny to the Mojave because he had the sheer audacity to believe he was fated to conquer everything before him. He had expected a monster, a villain, he would have been ready to see a twisted mutant, and cackling madman, a huge brute who could crush a man with his bare hands. He had not been prepared for this.

Before him stood a man, no more, no less, just a man. Late middle age, starting to go bald, hair losing color, wrinkled face. Put him in regular clothes and he could be anyone, he was so unremarkable to look upon, he could be a bartender, a farmer, a mechanic, a courier. He had done all those things, inflicted such horrors upon the world, and he was just a man like anyone else. Nothing special, nothing to set him apart, he could be anybody. The idea that just a regular mortal man could bring such evil, such suffering for nothing more than his own ideals, his own grand designs, it stunned Alaric to his core. All his denunciations, the insults, the arguments he had planned to use to break this man's delusions, they died on his lips.

"Are you even listening!" The man snapped, his white knuckle fists trembling in impotent rage.

He had been, but there was nothing worth hearing. Just the ramblings of a man given over to rage, and loss. No grand designs, no last minute epiphany, no promises that his death would change nothing. Just some guy ranting in anger. The sheer humanity of it was tragic.

He raised his pistol, holding the barrel steady. Caesar's ranting quieted and stopped as he stood staring down the barrel of a .45, seeming to realize at last that he really wasn't in control here. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Alaric cut him off.

"Sic. Semper. Tyrannis!" He hissed, and squeezed the trigger.

A few minutes later, Alaric walked back out of the burning tent, letting the flames consume it and all within, having deigned to save a few texts from the inferno before they were consumed, the personal journal of Caesar, notes detailing the overall standing of the Legion and its holdings, some historical texts, the important things. The rest was left to burn until it could no longer be recognized.

As he stood atop Fortification Hill, he looked up to the night sky, lit crimson by the flames and stained with a column of smoke that stretched high into the desert air, the man lost in thoughts. The revelation shown to him that night would at times bring him both comfort and fear in the days ahead. Children grew up fearing the monsters that lived in the world, in dark places and forgotten corners, figures of terror that you had to keep at bay. But in reality there were no monsters, no beings that existed to sow terror and pain in the lives of regular people.

The Legion, the Great War, the abuses of the old US government, those had not been the work of monsters. For in this world there were no monsters, just regular, normal people who did terrible things to each other, you wouldn't ever recognize it if you looked at them. Anyone could grow into the next Caesar, it wasn't as if fate chose him out to play the role he did. The next great terror of the wasteland could be anyone, a doctor, a politician, a sheriff, a courier.

He stood there for some time longer, contemplating the entwined hope and fear of a world that now seemed infinitely more complicated than it had that morning. And around him, the fires burned higher.

=== Author's note ===

Well, now the battle scene is done with, we can finally get back to some plot!

I hope you all are enjoying this, if you are then I'd love to get your feedback in the reviews section, it really is wonderful to hear back from my readers and I'd really like to know what you think!

But enough with this excitement and soul searching, now we return to what I'm sure you've all been enjoying more. Politics!


	6. Dealing In

Several days had passed since his visit to Jacobstown, and Alaric was once again within his shining tower looking over reports. The projections for the Vault power project were looking very favorable, but the other side of that coin was that you needed power cables to move power to where it was needed and centuries of neglect had left the Mojave's electrical grid barely functional. It was a testament to the civil engineers of the pre-war days that anything was still operable at all. Then again there was nothing like the constant, centuries-long fear of nuclear obliteration to motivate people to make every aspect of their society tough enough to still be working after the last horn sounded.

Even so, the system was barely holding together after all this time, and getting it patched back together would be a major undertaking. Thankfully he had access to Mr. House's fortune and a steady flow of cash coming in from the Strip to fund such a venture. Besides, this kind of big effort would show the people of the Mojave that he was taking steps to improve life in general for everyone. That said it would be ideal if they could build their munitions factory someplace that already had power rather than trying to rout it somewhere. Ultimately he had decided to dispatch a team to Vault 34, initially overlooked by the infrastructure project because of the severe radiation leakage from the reactor.

Then again, that was a potentially repairable problem, and he happened to know one of the last surviving reactor technicians from that blighted place, so ultimately it was a matter of jingling enough caps and assurances of proper radiation suits to get him and a team to at least investigate the possibility. All told it would be ideal if they could get the Vault working properly again, as it already housed a significant armory and gunsmithing workshop that would form an excellent basis for their work, but if not they could always take the long route.

That little hope under investigation, he turned his attention to other matters, namely the security situation across the Mojave. The first elements of the militia were being formed, simple outgrowths of the already existent town defense groups. All he really did was throw them a little money and a few armbands to wear as a uniform, denoting them as officially recognized defense personnel. It was amazing what a pittance of a payment and a little official recognition could do to motivate people who were used to receiving little to no recognition for their work. Again the trick was letting someone else do most of the work while making them think they were getting the better deal.

Boone was currently out of Vegas itself, traveling the Mojave from town to town to inspect the local defense groups. But his visits had an ulterior motive, to select which militia members would make good picks for the first generation of Army recruits when the time came, to form the first corps that would be more than just a bunch of rag-tag defenders with whatever gear they could scrounge or purchase on a modest stipend.

For now the Securitrons were keeping things quiet across the Mojave, losses had been suffered but they were thankfully very light. Whenever a raider band dared to stick its nose out of a cave or some ruined building the sledgehammer was dropped hard enough that the rest seemed to get the message. Examples had been made and eventually even a drugged out Fiend realizes that doing the same thing that got the last six people killed might be a bad idea. Plus without the Khans around to supply their chems, Alaric hoped that their drug-fueled bravery would eventually give way to sober terror.

All of this though ignored the big, scary, power-armored elephant in the room. The Brotherhood of Steel. He liked them, wished the best for them, considered their Elder a good man and a personal friend, and he lay awake at nights worrying about what they might do. While their commander was a kind, patient man who seemed pretty level headed and sound there were far too many troublesome people in their group. The rank and file was a bunch of hotheads with power armor and laser guns, brought up from birth in a culture that told them they were the biggest, strongest thing in the world and that it was okay to push primitive savages, read 'everyone else', around if it was for the good of humanity, read 'The Brotherhood'.

Their current second in command was a perfect example of that, a hardcase who's first thought upon the lockdown being officially lifted was to start a shooting war with the NCR the next day, damn the fact that such a conflict would likely weaken the Mojave so much that the Legion would overrun the whole place. The Brotherhood were the only group he knew of that combined a basic sense of altruism with such arrogant pride and presumption. And furthermore, they had been worryingly quiet. Their patrols had started pushing out, slowly, cautiously, then pulled back after the battle at Hoover Dam. Drumming his fingers on the table, Alaric sighed and made his decision. It was time to take a trip back to Hidden Valley and see what the knights of the old world were up to.

XXXXX

'Hidden Valley', Alaric thought as he looked over the mostly empty bit of desert, a few rocks and a lot of sand and scorpions. It was an appropriate name, it made him think of some old fantasy stories he'd read recently. The secluded dale where they Fey lived, ancient and wise but also capricious. As liable to curse you as offer you aid and always holding themselves up as better. A home to beings possessed of ancient wisdom and long abiding bitterness, where mortals should tread cautiously, and approach its guardians with the utmost humility and respect when coming to plead for favors.

Of course this was simply a social call, he wasn't here to demand military action or debate policy, simply to say hello. That he was dressed in full power armor and loaded for bear was merely a matter of respect, one knight arriving in the hall of another in full armor as a matter of respect. It wasn't meant to impress them by how his armor was better, or as a contingency that he might have to shoot his way out, of course not don't be foolish. For the third time he checked that the power cell in his laser rifle was fully charged, before walking towards the bunker door.

The outside was deserted, only a few scuttling scorpions and blowing sand to greet a passerby, but within there were two paladins in T-51b armor standing vigil by the entrance to the bunker. Alaric seemed like the black knight next to their shining white armor, wearing his new suit of Advanced Power Armor Mk. 1. Not for the first time he wondered what the Mk. II must be like, if this suit was already better than anything the brotherhood had.

"Hail." He said, weapons at his side, placing a closed fist on his chest in greeting.

"Hail." The right hand sentry returned, only nodding and not taking his hands from his weapon. "What brings you to our bunker this day?"

"I simply wish to speak with my compatriots, and renew my friendship with your brothers and sisters, and to speak with the elder who welcomed me before."

The two sentries gave each other a very slight glance, and he wondered if they were speaking on a private commlink. "Enter then, but the Elder may not be able to grant you an audience."

Wondering exactly what that meant, Alaric descended into the Brotherhood's secluded bunker. He walked the halls, exchanging a brief glance or a nod here and there, trying to gauge the mood of the people here. It was different than when he was here before, then there had been a kind of constant weariness and tension in the air, a worry that nobody wanted to talk about because nobody wanted to think about it. Living underground with the constant worry of attack must wear upon the psyche after a few years. Still, now it was different, but not in a very good way, he couldn't put his finger on it exactly.

"So, decided to finally stop by and visit?" A familiar voice asked. "I was starting to wonder if you forgot where we were."

"In my defense, there are many bunkers here." Alaric said as he turned. "It's easy to get confused."

Veronica rolled her eyes. She was once again dressed in a not terribly complimentary robe and hood, he supposed an evening gown was frowned upon in the company of such dour and serious people. Besides, they didn't take grease stains well. "How have things been?" He asked in a more quiet voice as the scribe fell in beside him.

"Let's go someplace private."

That was a little more worrying, even before when things had almost come to blows, she hadn't shown such open distrust of her fellow Brotherhood members. Perhaps things had changed more than he'd realized. He made some pointless small talk, the usual things a normal person might be expected to ask about when talking to an old friend, before they reached a quietly abandoned workshop and he let the act drop. "You're worried." He stated simply, removing his helmet and leaning against the wall.

"So are you, coming here dressed like that." She pointed out. In truth Alaric had prepared for battle before coming here, the last visit had almost ended in a firefight. It seemed to him that the Brotherhood here were on a hair trigger at times.

"I am cautious, not worried." He lied.

Veronica shrugged. "Well you're right, I am. People are talking and I don't like what I'm hearing. There was celebration with the NCR retreating, I don't think anyone even noticed the Legion at all, they just dismissed them as a bunch of savages. People down here were jumping for joy when they left, talking about how it was time to set out and retake what was lost."

"But you haven't, you've barely even moved beyond the valley." Alaric pointed out.

"Exactly, people were expecting us to march back to Helios and move into the Dam and have everything go back to the way it was, but then that didn't happen. Now that someone else has taken them over."

Alaric sighed, hanging his head a little. "I know my presence up there is probably a big cause for worry."

"Among some people yes." Veronica said quietly, and Alaric smiled. At least there was one member of the Brotherhood with a little faith in him. "Some were saying we should march out and take what we wanted from you just like we were going to from the NCR, that the situation hasn't changed at all. But other people down here like you, you came to us, you helped us, to some you're one of us in a way. And there are a lot of people who are sick and tired of sitting in this bunker and waiting for the world to turn back to the way it was."

"It sounds like you have a schism on the horizon." Alaric said, his voice low and somber. "Considering I almost had to shoot my way out of here last time, I wouldn't be surprised. Saddened, but not surprised."

Veronica's voice took on that same sad, haunted quality it had when that incident had almost gone bloody. "I know, I've seen it too. Hardin and the old guard are trying to pressure McNamara into action, while the newer generation still remembers losing family over the last time we fought a conflict like that. And the people in the middle just want to keep the bunker door locked and wait it out."

Alaric could see the divisions laying themselves out, Hardin, Veronica and McNamara each representing a different aspect of the Brotherhood and how it might go, charging into the wasteland full of piss and vinegar, moving peacefully into a new way of life, or staying in their tomb until they died out or faded into irrelevance.

"People are drawing battle lines." Alaric stated. "I motivated enough people to fight to see the first signs. The sentries at the door almost didn't let me in, I used to just be able to walk in. Still, that doesn't explain why there's no real expansion going on. At the very least I expected some scouts, maybe a few expeditions to important sites, you're less active now than you were under the lockdown."

Veronica rocked back and forth on her heels, clearly uncomfortable. "I don't have an answer for you, McNamara hasn't come out of his chambers for days now, there are guards on the doors and he's not admitting visitors. He hasn't explained his orders to anybody. That's half of what's got everyone so jumpy."

Alaric sighed, rubbing his face with his gauntlets. "I'll have to find a way to talk to him. One way or another I need to talk to him, hopefully he'll grant me an audience."

"And if not?" She asked cautiously.

"I'll improvise." He said with a shrug and the kind of flippant ease that made cities tremble.

XXXXX

"I am here to see the Elder." Alaric said, in calm even tones to one of the guards standing watch outside of the Elder's chambers.

"Our Elder is not accepting visitors at this time." Said the guard.

Alaric slowly swiveled his head until he was staring directly at the man with a glare that punched straight through two sets of helmet visors and could possibly have made Geiger counters crackle a bit in sympathy. "I am here to see the Elder. There are important matters I would like to discuss with him, and I am concerned about him as a friend. Stand aside."

"We have our orders, no admittance to anyone, not even our own, let alone you." The paladin responded obstinately.

The fingers of Alaric's right hand slowly curled into a fist, which should truly have been worrying because the right gauntlet of his armor had been replaced with a Saturnite Power Fist. He took a deep breath, preparing a well-reasoned argument that would surely appeal to logic and sense, something involving flames and the screams of damned souls, when the intercom buzzed into life.

"Let him in." A tired, recognizable voice said. The two guards looked to each other, their glance telling, before they respectfully stepped aside.

"Thank you." Alaric said coolly, calming himself as he entered the inner sanctum of the Brotherhood.

He removed his helmet as he entered the spacious room, seeing Elder McNamara sitting at his desk. He noted that the usual pair of guards were absent, they must have been the two outside, leaving him alone in the room.

"I am sorry for the trouble of my guards, they are at times somewhat overprotective, when I realized it was you I told them to stand down. I am curious though, what would you have done if I had not?"

"Something indescribably atrocious involving a stealthboy, a water balloon and a pair of chopsticks." Alaric said dryly, walking over to the desk and standing there, feeling slightly awkward towering over a frail old man in full power armor like this. "I'm glad it wasn't necessary, I just had this armor cleaned."

McNamara chuckled, though it seemed more like a forced exhale than a laugh. "I have never truly understood your humor, are all from your homeland like you?"

"I hope not." He answered truthfully.

There was a pregnant pause. "It is good to see you again." McNamara said after collecting his thoughts. "The world outside has changed much recently, and you have always been dependable and a good friend to us."

"Is there something I can do to help?" He asked curiously. Offering assistance, he had found, was usually a good way for people to tell you their problems.

"I'm afraid this situation requires a solution a little harder than fetching a few filters or holotapes." The Elder said with a shake of his head. "There is… discontent within the Chapter."

"I've noticed. At least nobody has started shooting yet." Alaric pointed out, hoping to lead the conversation a bit.

"At least that, yes. But Hardin still calls for action. He has much support amongst my more military minded brothers, and I worry for the future."

Alaric's eyes searched over the man before him, an intense and evaluating stare. "You fear he will take power?"

The Elder shook his head. "No, Hardin is loyal, if a little obstinate. That wouldn't be like him." Alaric had to wonder how well McNamara really knew his subordinate, he might not have been willing to take violent action but he had certainly desired a change in leadership. "But I do fear for the future of this chapter. I will not be the leader here forever, there will come a time when control must pass to another and I fear if people like Hardin have their way, then we will be led to ruin."

Again, Alaric examined him, before he took a deep breath. He could sense nothing but sincerity from the man before him, the worries of an old man looking back on his life and seeing what he could have done better. "It is an understandable worry, Hardin is the next in line for succession isn't he?"

"Yes, his position makes him the legal heir, and he has much support among certain sects of this order."

"But not all?"

McNamara sighed. "There are those among us, the younger of us, to whom the lockdown has been most of their lives, who just want to leave here and find a new life in the wasteland above. But to do that would unmake us."

"Or remake you." Alaric pointed out. "The Brotherhood was founded with the ideal that you would one day help rebuild the world, can you do that in this bunker?"

McNamara sighed. "The time is not yet right, the world is not ready for what we have kept safe for so long."

"And when will the time be right? People are up there right now rebuilding their world without you, by the time you open your doors you won't have anything left worth knowing." Alaric said, his voice more sad than harsh. "I'm sorry, I didn't come here to debate with you, I just wished to check up on you, to see how your people are getting on."

"To see if we are a threat to you?" The Elder asked. Alaric didn't deny it. "I have received reports from my scouts, listened to the broadcasts. I know you're building an army up there. Many of my brothers don't see the big strategic picture, they think the NCR is beaten and don't even care the Legion exists. They see you as the only enemy up there and the only reason you could need an army is if you mean to attack us. Hardin is using fear of you to turn people to his cause."

"I cannot leave the Mojave undefended, people there have suffered for too long, I won't just sit idly by and do nothing while pain and suffering spread."

McNamara sighed again, seeming to shrink slowly where he sat. "You sound like another figure I read about in our histories. I wonder if you will be remembered as fondly as him." Alaric was curious but didn't press the matter, the Elder seemed tired, as if this conversation had worn him out. "However the days ahead play out, I know you will play a large part in them. I only hope that things will work out for the best, and will do what I can."

They talked for a while longer, on increasingly unimportant topics until there was simply nothing left to say. So, giving the due respect to the Elder, Alaric departed to find Veronica waiting on the upper level for him.

"Have a good talk? I'm surprised you got in."

"It was very illuminating." He said with a sigh, walking towards the exit, Veronica at his side.

"You know people are going to be talking now, about why you got in to talk to the Elder while nobody else did, and what he said to you."

They climbed the stairs, passing the security checkpoint. "He just confided some of his worries in me, and I offered him my support."

Veronica seemed concerned as they climbed the stairs into the entrance bunker, walking out of range of the listening gear at the inner doors.

"So, how is he?" He asked pointedly, what she really wanted to know.

Alaric sighed deeply, leaning against a wall and rubbing his brow. It had taken the Elder over a minute to get to his desk and tell his guards to stand down. A protracted conversation sapped his strength, he had visibly lost weight, and Alaric had smelled medication in the air. Add to that his insistence on privacy beyond the norm and his constant worrying about the future and those he would leave behind, and the answer was tragically clear.

"He's dying." Alaric said in a hollow voice.

XXXXX

The world was grey and still, the sky overcast, heavy like cold iron, the only sound was the wind whistling forlornly through the empty streets and the creak of rusted metal in the distance. The city lay in ruin with the great husks of buildings sitting quietly as the dust settled upon them, until it was washed away by the next rainstorm. The streets were silent and somber, rusted hulls of cars choking the intersections, the occasional streetlamp blinking on and off as its intermittent power sparked. It was a forsaken place, a forgotten place, a place that promised only danger. This was Bullhead City.

But if you stared long enough you could see a flicker of movement, a shadow shifting, a rock falling, just enough to send a shiver up the spine and let you know that something still moved here, disturbing the repose of the dead city. Within one of the buildings, in the back room of a half collapsed hardware store, the faint clink of metal on metal betrayed the presence of one such trespasser.

He wore a brown overcoat festooned with pockets and pouches, in addition to the bag hanging at his side and a large pack on his back. His head was covered in a leather headpiece that incorporated a gas mask, the long tube hooked into a filter canister at his hip, and there was a greyish cloth wrapped around his neck to help seal the gap. From his head to his boots he was entirely swathed in the protective clothing, the need for which was clear from the steady tick-ticking of the Geiger counter at his belt.

He had the casing of an old radio open, gutting tubes and wires and anything else that was useful in the half destroyed device, a few others laying disassembled behind him. His hands moved in quick, controlled movements that belied experience, unscrewing the glass tubes and putting them in his bag. On the floor beside him lay an AK 47 rifle, at his hip there was a holster for a large .44 revolver, and a crude looking shotgun was slung in a scabbard at his back. Finishing off with a rather wicked assortment of knives, the man was heavily armed.

In the distance there was a faint noise, stone striking stone and he froze, perfectly still save for the hand slowly reaching for his rifle. Hand on the grip, he sat there in perfect stillness and silence for several minutes, before he slowly resumed his work. His name was Chase, and this was his day job.

He finished up with the last few usable components, carefully inspecting each vacuum tube to make sure it was intact and would function, there was only so much even this sturdy tech could take before it started breaking down and between the occasional rainstorm and neglect, such parts were well valued. Looking through the thick glass lenses of his handmade filter helmet, he packed up his spoils and lifted his rifle, ready to return back. He always carried backup filters but even so it wasn't a good idea to tempt fate in the blighted place he called home.

He stuck to the shadows as he moved, taking his movements slow and careful, hugging the sides of the street and keeping his head on a swivel. The nightvision goggles helped, but they were no substitute to good sense and due prudence. The dead city was an inhospitable place, no people made their homes here, but there were things that stalked these shattered streets and made their lairs in abandoned buildings, things which resented a mere mortal trespassing in their tomb. Chase had no desire to incur their wrath today even if he had escaped their clutches before.

Simply passing through the city was a harrowing ordeal at the best of times, everything was a potential danger. Every dark doorway could disgorge a deadly creature, any open space made you an exposed target, the ground was treacherous and uneven and injuring a foot or an ankle was a death sentence. If you moved too fast you drew attention to yourself but if you stayed stationary for too long they would find you eventually. Once upon a time this place had been full of life and energy, but mankind had long ago surrendered this city to other powers, things that scraped and crawled and hunted here, this world was theirs now. Chase was one of those with the skills and the courage to intrude in their lands, but he knew he was unwelcome here. This was not man's domain anymore, this city obeyed new masters, every part of it wanted you dead and it surrendered its secrets only grudgingly.

Even then, it came back for revenge in the end.

Chase thought he might have seen movement ahead and ducked into a storefront, going through a back room and out through a shattered window into an alley, before he slipped down another street. Eventually he found a quiet nook in a darkened corner, pointing his double barreled shotgun at the opening, breathing as slowly and quietly as he could. He heard the footsteps coming closer, brazen and unthinking where he skulked and hid. They slowed as they neared his hiding place, and he heard a rattling breath even as he stopped breathing. Finally the footsteps started again and he listened to them recede into the distance. Taking a moment to regain his composure, he gave it some time before he continued on towards his destination.

The Metro station finally before him, he dared to walk out of cover and shadow towards the entrance. There was no choice really, so he just moved quickly. His boots slapping the pavement, he double timed it across the street and quickly reached the frozen escalator leading down. He had taken the first step when the hairs on the back of his neck tingled, and he slowly turned to look over his shoulder. There, on a rooftop down the street, a few figures were silhouetted against the iron grey sky. They didn't move, didn't make noise, simply watched from the distance.

His heart thumping faster in his chest, Chase walked down into the relative safety of the Metro tunnels, leaving the world above to the care of its new masters.

XXXXX

The secure gate of the entryway rattled closed behind him, and Chase finally removed his filter helmet, wiping his face with the cloth of his face wrap, it may have been lifesaving but it got stuffy after a few hours. He was a young man, in his very early twenties, with a shock of roughly cut grey hair and eyes like pieces of flint. Not unattractive by most standards, if not for the emotionless, hollow non-expression he usually wore.

"See any ghosts?" One of the guards asked. There were three, one sitting behind a large machinegun, the others holding small arms. As one of the scavengers he knew them well enough, it happened when you went up more often than most other people who lived down here.

"A few, they kept their distance though. Warn the next person who goes up will you, I saw a pack of them watching the entrance."

The guards exchanged meaningful looks. When a pack of them was seen together it usually meant some kind of trouble in the near future for somebody. "Think they're setting up a warren near the exit?"

"Maybe." Chase said neutrally. "There were only a few of them though, three or four together, that I saw at least." With nothing else to say, he readjusted his neck wrap and proceeded further down the tunnel. Passing through another secure door, he let the sounds and smells of civilization wash over him. Talking people, cooking food, the whirr of distant machinery from some shop. Life, such as it was, clung on here like some hardy lichen to barren rock. With the surface a radioactive hell the populace survived down here in the Metro tunnels, sub basements and utility corridors beneath the city. A seemingly endless warren of tunnels that provided them with security and relative safety, at least from the horrors of the surface world. The other inhabitants of the Metro were another story entirely, but that wasn't his usual line of work.

This town of sorts, built into a good sized Metro station and its nearby tunnels, was his home and had been for some time. Clearwater was its name, a decent enough place as far as Bullhead went, where there was never enough food, water or power to go around at the best of times. But the people living there were less likely than most to stab you in the back if they thought they could get away with that. All the same a .44 magnum on your hip made life a little more civilized wherever you went. There were shops for equipment, food, personal affects, a bar, a decent enough militia to keep the gates barred and the tunnels under watch. As life in Bullhead went you could do a lot worse.

Despite the Metro and the other warrens being humanity's home and respite, not all of it was terribly safe. Some tunnels were broken open, or basement entries unsecured and sometimes things from the surface wandered in. Woe be to the unwary traveler that was caught alone by some of those. Besides that there were the other human inhabitants as well, who could always be counted on to make life difficult for each other. Bandits, bullies, would be kings, no shortage of them despite the way they all barely clung to life as a society. Another reason Chase preferred to work on the surface, there you knew everything was trying to kill you, the dead city's dangers didn't sidle up with a smile before poisoning your drink.

He went to a repurposed ticket booth, the carved plywood sign proudly declaring it as 'Clearwater Hardware' where one could find any amount of technical little odds and ends. Motors, switches, other various machine parts and fodder for tinkers an workmen.

"Ah, Chase, did you find something good?" The proprietor asked, a perennially grease stained young woman who had inherited the shop from her father.

"Yes, the shop was in good condition as you said, you have a good informant." He replied, getting his bag out and setting some of the tubes and other electronics on the counter, keeping a few for himself.

She inspected them, nodding after she seemed to be satisfied. "Excellent, I'll see about setting up some more work for you soon if you're interested, I have a few other leads."

"Sounds good, if you keep the same pay." He said, his voice neutral and emotionless, but never hard. There was no warmth in his voice, but no malice either, he simply spoke.

The woman behind the counter counted out his caps for each component before she began sorting them away. "As agreed upon, and it'll be the same the next time, no surprises."

"Good, I'll wait for word from you so I can head out again." He said, quickly putting the caps in one of his many pockets before turning and walking away. It had been a long day and his throat was dry, so he headed towards the bar.

Henry's was more than just a watering hole, it was more or less the center of entertainment in Clearwater. Bar, inn, whorehouse and diner all in one, it was more or less the only place to go for its specific brand of entertainment, and the closest you could get to nightlife in a place where day and night were abstract concepts almost nobody cared about. The front of the lean-to structure was covered in an assortment of lighting, including a sign proclaiming 'Henry's Bar' in mismatched strings of lights. Music and the sound of general merriment poured from the door and windows, and if you listened close enough you could hear the sounds of more intimate entertainment leaking through the sheet metal walls. If you wanted a bit of food and a quiet corner you went someplace else, but if you wanted a place with good music, decent food, and booze, chems and sex all on tap, this is where you came. Needless to say the place was pretty popular with traders and those in more risky professions, Henry's was never empty.

Chase pushed through the doors, letting the music pouring out of a jukebox pour over him. His eyes flicked over the stage where a man in a shabby suit was telling jokes that got lost in the music half the time. Deeper in the back he could see a few smaller stages where young men and women in various states of undress entertained audiences looking for something entirely different. He shuffled up to the bar and dropped a few caps on the uneven wood surface. "Vodka." He ordered simply.

Henry himself was working the bar tonight. He was a big man with a ruddy face, and while he had a reputation as a drunkard, a letch and general reprobate, he dealt fair enough with his workers whether he was paying them to find something on the surface or entertain a guest in bed. And if nothing else he didn't shirk away from working himself even when he could tell someone else to tend the bar.

"Hey, Chase, glad to see you're still kicking." He said, pouring a shot of something with at least enough alcohol content to be called a proper drink before setting the bottle down.

Chase slugged the shotglass and poured himself another. "Good haul, ghosts stalking around the entrance though."

Henry grunted. "That's why I never go up there myself, see too many men coming back dead inside, when they come back at all. Say, you need work? I've got something that requires your skills."

"Maybe later, I have an obligation." He replied, taking another drink. "It might take a few days at least, you're still looking by then I'll come back. Don't you have anyone else that can do it?"

"Well yeah." Henry shrugged. "But you're dependable. When I pay you to do something I know you're going to follow through on it, you've got a reputation for that, I'm afraid." He said with a chuckle. "And you're just plain good at what you do, besides."

Chase gave the slightest of shrugs. "I'll consider it."

After that Henry left him alone to drink in peace, letting the noise and the smells wash over him. He glanced back towards the private area of the bar but decided against it after some thought, he wasn't in the mood. Eventually he put the bottle down on the counter and walked out, heading back to the out of the way room he called his own.

Turning on his hotplate and warming up some preserved meat, he got his bag out and set the tubes he'd kept down before him, before reaching into a hidden nook and pulling out what he found. The little tablet, small enough to fit in his hand, had a darkened screen on one side, and a few buttons and dials across it. The front panel proudly declared 'Pipboy 2500' in faded lettering. Popping the back cover open, he continued tinkering and fiddling with the broken device, as he had been for the past few weeks. If he could get it working it might be worth quite a bit to somebody, and it was nice to have a hobby.

Eventually, failing to coax life back into the little machine, he curled up in a corner and pulled a few tattered blankets over himself, quickly falling asleep.

=== Author's Note ===

A new challenger appears!

Let me know what you think about this latest chapter, things are getting more complicated for our characters it seems.


	7. Cashing Out

After another day of tinkering and preparing for his next expedition, Chase once again headed out into the Dead City. It was the nighttime hours again, he was lucky enough to have found his nightvision goggles on one expedition, so he had the advantage in the darker times. That said the constant pall of dust and cloud that swathed the city like a funeral shroud never let light truly fall at the best of times. This time he was headed further away, to what rumor suggested was an intact military communications post. It could be a trove of very valuable material, but it was also far out from safe territory. Not many people liked going out so far they couldn't walk back in a single day, but the pay was good.

As he walked he thought about Henry's offer. Working for him was decent enough, and it was certainly a lot less dangerous than this, but at the same time the pay wasn't good enough to go anywhere. Oh sure you would stay alive working for him, but in the end you would just be in the same place down the line, no better off in the long run. This kind of job had at least the possibility of improving his life, so he felt it was worth the risk. All the same, it was nice to have his options open, and it had been nice for a while for making ends meet.

The Dead City cast its long shadows over empty streets, shattered high-rises and forlorn sky bridges hanging over him like moldering bones as he picked his way around the cars that dotted the streets, moving with the cautious but swift pace of someone who knew this terrain better than most. The ghosts were less active at night, despite their twisted forms they still needed light to see. With the shroud laying tight over the city and only a few flickering lights casting their bluish glow here and there he had the advantage. Even a ghost was as blind as anyone else in total darkness.

Still, an incautious noise could alert them and they seemed to be territorial most of the time, and he wasn't entirely convinced they couldn't smell you on the wind. Air quality was decent enough at least, the background radiation and chemical contamination in the air made this place inhospitable at the best of times, so he'd brought plenty of spare filters. The going was easy enough for now at least, and he made good time, stopping now and then to check his location on his map before continuing.

Now and then he saw a flicker of movement in the distance and waited for it to pass, but nothing came near. That was the way of this place though, flickers on the horizon, movement in the corner of your eye. People had gotten themselves killed jumping at shadows up here often enough.

The intermittent contacts and sightings only grew more frequent as he continued towards his destination. He didn't like the tall buildings, most scavengers refused to go in them at all. It was impossible to tell which dark towers were harmless hulks, and which housed a pack of ghosts, watching you from shattered gas in the old glass, into which you could only see blackness. He had been traveling for hours, and still only flickers. It had the hairs on the back of his neck on end, he knew it was only to be expected but at the same time it seemed too consistent, too purposeful. He felt like he was being stalked, always catching movement out of the corner of his eye, it seemed just barely too insistent to be random. Then again the old city could just be playing tricks on his nerves, yawning doorframes and empty windows could drive you mad if you let your imagination run away with your sense.

Finally his destination was before him, another of the high gutted buildings. According to some old documents his employer had dug up, there was a communications station on the very top. Given the reputation the area had, and the usual fears of going into enclosed spaces when the ghosts were about, there was a good chance it was untouched by scavengers at least. Time and the elements were another matter, but military gear was built to last.

He slung his AK and drew his shotgun, he'd made it himself out of various pipe fittings and scrap, and it was sturdy enough and had always served him well. Hugging it tight into his shoulder, he advanced into the darkened building that stretched up until its higher levels were lost amidst the shroud.

Old metal creaked and groaned around him as he ascended, taking his time on the stairwells cluttered with detritus and covered with dust. The elevators were of course broken long ago but the structure was relatively intact. The city, from what he had gathered, was never strategically important so the damage done here was simply by time and neglect rather than explosive blast waves. Of course the radiation had also taken its toll, that had been what truly drove humanity out of this place. Still, it meant that the buildings were at least structurally sound most of the time. His Geiger counter crackled in his ear as he climbed, knowing he was passing through the shroud now and very glad of his improvised protective gear. The chemicals and radiation in that grey fog took longer to kill you but you wouldn't be any less dead if you breathed too much.

Time slipped by in a sort of haze, endlessly circling about as he climbed the staircase the grey shroud pressing in about him, cutting visibility. Eventually though he started to pass through it and had to stop for a minute as he reached the upper level and looked out, seeing over the top for the first time. The shroud lay in a wispy blanket over the city, he could see the tips of other buildings poking through in the distance, high above the sky could be seen, a deeper darkness through the top layers of mist and cloud. It was amazing, but he shook himself and pressed onwards and upwards.

He was almost to the top when he stopped in his tracks, his lifesaving sixth sense alerting him to something wrong. There was something about the pattern of the fallen plaster on the stairs ahead that seemed wrong. Gingerly, delicately, he moved some of it aside with his knife to reveal the fragmentation mine concealed beneath. With his heart thumping inside his mask he disarmed it with a careful press of the little arming switch. Someone else was up here, and whoever it was didn't like company it seemed.

Moving slower, more cautiously, shotgun at the ready, he continued upwards. There were a few more traps, tripwires, pressure plates, large heavy things poised to fall on your head. As he finally stepped out of the stairwell to look for the communications room, he saw the most obvious trap yet. A poorly concealed gun barrel poking out from behind a pillar, hooked up to a fat tripwire. He walked over to it, cut the wire with some wire snips, before turning the corner to salvage the gun, only to see that it was just a pipe taped to the wall. Momentarily surprised, he failed to see the true trap for what it was until.

With a noise between a grunt and a roar, a figure rushed out of the shadows towards him, a straight bladed machete in hand. Chase whirled around and tried to bring his shotgun up but the attacker crashed into him, shouting strange words that meant nothing to him, forcing the gun back against his chest. He grabbed the man's forearm with his left hand, forestalling the machete blow and soon they were struggling and tussling where they stood, Chase's back pressed up against the wall.

His goggles had been knocked off kilter by the crash and he could barely see now, the rim of the goggles half over his eyes as he tried to fight. On instinct he brought his knee up and slammed it into the other man's groin, shaking him for just long enough to reach up and tear the goggles down to hang around his neck. He tried to bring the shotgun up again but his enemy rallied and kicked the barrel aside, the blast of the missed shot echoing around the room as the man jumped at him again.

Chase rushed inside of the outstretched arm, slamming his shoulder into the man's chest but grunting as he felt his body hit something hard, armor probably, still it knocked him off balance and sent him stumbling long enough for Chase to draw his revolver and fire. The impact of the .44 magnum slug knocked his attacker back, staggering in place as his head seemed to catch up with what happened to him, clutching the wound in his belly. Chase didn't take his chances, throwing the man to the ground and stamping on his neck until he stopped moving. Only then did he let himself slump against a wall and catch his breath, sucking air through the suddenly suffocating breathing mask.

When his heart finally stopped thundering he got his goggles back on right and gave the dead man a look over, he seemed to be wearing some kind of light body armor, but he couldn't tell much more in the monochromatic green his goggles rendered everything in. He seemed to have arrived however, a large metal door on the wall showing his destination before him at last. He picked the lock with a little effort and finally got inside, surprised to see the room so intact.

It must have stayed sealed since the war, emergency lighting still glowed yellow, he could hear the hum of air filters still doing their job, there were a few cots in the corner and a row of inactive radio gear. He fiddled with it for a bit, finding it all working well enough, even a terminal but that just contained seemingly irrelevant personal logs, typical. Still this was a treasure trove of functional tech if he could carry it all back with him. Tomorrow though, he was tired from hours of walking and the fight still had him on edge, it wasn't often you found respite in the Dead City and he didn't want to be run ragged if he ran into more trouble, speaking of which…

He went back out, seeing some simple camping gear set up and collecting it before dragging the dead body inside before locking the door again, letting the filters scrub any traces of the thinned shroud from the air before he removed his thick breathing mask and wiped his face with a cloth. Then he turned to examine the man who'd just tried to kill him. Unless he was from a station he'd never visited, this man couldn't have been from around here. For one, only an idiot would try to make camp in a high-rise building in this city. The shroud was thinner up here but it would still kill you if you were exposed long enough.

Whoever this was didn't even have a breathing mask or protection, his bare skin was exposed in a few places. He wore some kind of tight fitting armor, lots of leather, cloth and metal, painted red. Instead of pants he had a skirt of all things, and his bare legs below that were protected only by sandals and cloth wrappings. The little nicks and scratches on his exposed legs showed how bad an idea that was in a city composed primarily of rusted metal and broken glass. His face was concealed behind a cloth mask and a metal helmet, with dark lensed goggles over the eyes. It put him in mind of military gear, but very primitive at that.

Still, it would be worth something back in the Metro, so he stripped the body of all useful gear and clothing before turning to set his own pack down. The man had evidently suffering from starvation, seeming wasted and thin, his gear fitting lose on his limbs, had he gotten lost here? That reminded Chase though, he had the time and means to cook himself a hot meal, always a rarity when out in the city. He got out his hotplate, plugging it into one of the functioning fission batteries powering some of the equipment here, and setting a pan up to cook dinner. It had been a risky day, and the stalking ghosts had him on edge. But he was in a place of rare security tonight. When he got home tomorrow he could sell this gear for good money, maybe spruce his room up a bit, or upgrade his gear. Tonight at least he wouldn't go hungry, he consoled himself. Mortal peril was a constant companion in his life, more so than most. But he'd arrived alive, found what he was looking for, and tonight had real, fresh meat. So all in all it hadn't been that bad a day. That pleasant thought on his mind, he drew his knife and walked over to the body.

XXXXX

After having pitched what was left of the body out a broken window, lest it start stinking up the place by morning, Chase got down to striping the electronics out of their housings, stuffing whole radios into his pack and stripping the most valuable components from the computer consoles, they were just too big and heavy to carry the whole thing back. His job done and feeling quite nice after the largest hot meal he'd had in a long time, he sat down on a cot to fiddle with the broken Pipboy for a while, trying out some of the different components he'd pulled, replacing anything that looked broken.

Started idly humming as he fiddled with it, losing himself in the work of replacing tubes and circuits and bits of frayed wires until he was barely even thinking about it anymore. He was so zoned out that it was such a shock when the little tablet in his hands warbled into life that he almost threw it across the room in surprise, as it was he jumped so much that he had to scramble and grab it before it dropped to the tile flooring.

He turned it around quickly, seeing the black screen lit up with green text, and music pouring out of the speaker that had been turned up to full volume. He turned it down quickly out of habit and inspected the Pipboy more closely. The personal data section was empty, the memory there was probably broken or it had never been filled in the first place, but it worked fine now. He typed a few sentences on the flip-out keyboard and saved them, opening and closing the document a few times before deleting it to make sure everything there was working. He was surprised after a minute when the music switched over to a man talking in smooth tones, and he quickly switched over a few tabs to see that this wasn't recorded music like he'd thought, but a radio signal being received. He hadn't heard of a signal coming in before, the shroud seemed to block everything, but they were up high enough over the top that maybe they could receive something now, so he listened in.

"In an announcement that shocked listeners within New Vegas and across the territory, Mr. Reynolds has called for the creation of a new Army corps. This decision is, to use his words, 'In response to escalating threats to regional security and stability'. When asked to clarify, he specified the continued threat of raider bands, and the possible return of Caesar's Legion, or some other major threat.

While many interviewed on the subject seem hesitant and unsure, ranks are beginning to fill out and the base at Camp McCarran has been designated as the current headquarters of this corps. Anyone wishing to volunteer is being welcomed, and the recruiters are promising one hundred caps a week, in addition to providing equipment and provisions for all soldiers accepted into the program.

Certainly some very exciting developments, and we here at NVR will continue to keep you updated as the situation across the Mojave continues to change. This is Mr. New Vegas, reminding any new recruits, to keep their Big Irons on their hips."

As the ballad of a ranger started to play over the radio, Chase sat back on the bunk, eyes a little wide. A city? An Army? A whole region? Could there be someplace outside the Dead City that was more stable, more intact than this place was? He fiddled with the controls on the Pipboy, eventually bringing up a regional map. There were names and icons for towns, trading posts, roads, scattered like a spider's web across a whole big region called the Mojave. Compared to that his city seemed small.

Chase drummed his fingers, thinking. One hundred caps a week was good money, not the most but they were offering a place to sleep and food on top of that? He checked the map again. This New Vegas place wasn't that far off, a quick hop over to a road marked with a 95 and then straight north. He tapped his foot, thinking about it some more, before he decided he would at least try to check it out. Nobody who said they were going to leave the city ever came back. Most people assumed they just died out there, but he'd always wondered if life was just nicer out there, and they never decided to come back.

For a steady job that paid that much, and steady food, he'd risk it, rather than pushing death off day by day in this place, starvation was always on the horizon and his work could only push it back further and further ahead, one bad run of luck and he'd be done for. Or working for Henry for a living wage until life threw him another bit of good luck, if it even would do so again. He'd been lucky to rise above that in the first place.

His mind made up, he pulled a warm intact blanket over himself and switched off the light, falling asleep almost instantly as he usually did when he was behind a locked metal door.

XXXXX

His trip back the next day had been blessedly uneventful. A few close calls, the usual that you might run into in this city, but he'd made it back without having to shoot anybody else on the way there. He had dropped off the loot, taking his pay for each piece he'd recovered, before selling the dead warrior's clothes and gear at the general store. Despite looking a bit odd it was decent enough gear against bare fists or clubs, and clothes were clothes. Considering some people down here had to be satisfied with a makeshift kilt of rags, or something similar, nobody had any right to complain.

"Planning a bit of an expedition?" The shopkeeper asked as Chase bought a few bags of jerky and other preserved food.

"A bit, yeah. I might not be back for a while." He didn't add 'if at all', that was always assumed.

"Best of luck then." The man said, admiring the workmanship on the machete he'd just bought.

After that he'd packed up what meager personal belongings he wanted to take. A ratty old journal with notes and some personal thoughts he wanted to transcribe into the Pipboy, some little personal items he liked to keep around, an old book he liked enough to keep rereading though he really should have sold it a long time ago.

He'd slept well under his new blanket before finally being ready, just wanting to kill a little time before he headed out, wanting the cover of night before embarking on his journey. So with nowhere else to go, he wandered back to Henry's.

"Ah, good expedition?" Asked the big man behind the bar.

"Well enough, the usual Henry." Chase took the vodka, slugging it back before starting to eat the plate of mushrooms he'd bought. Food was always scarce in the Metro under Bullhead, the only food they could grow was mushrooms cultivated from whatever biomass they had. Most didn't like thinking about exactly what said mass was. There was old preserved food of course, prewar preservatives were very good, but the only source of fresh meat was often the bodies of the dead. Starvation was an effective motivator, most people down here had engaged in cannibalism at least once. Given that his profession tended to generate more dead bodies than most, Chase tended to do so more than many.

"Given my offer any thought? Much worse things than a steady job, like old times?" The big man offered.

"Getting desperate?" Chase asked with a raised brow.

"Hah, no, just offering."

He shook his head. "I think I've found a new gig, but it's a ways away, I might not be back this way for a long time."

Henry nodded. "I see, too bad. Well best of luck to you, wherever this job is."

He munched on his mushrooms for a bit. "Yeah, and Henry? Thanks, I probably wouldn't have made it if you didn't give me a job back then."

The big man shrugged. "Nothing to thank, just running my place. Take care of yourself out there kid, I know a few people here will miss having you around."

People shouldn't thank him, he was just doing a job. His doing a job helped other people do their jobs, they all stayed alive a bit longer. There was nothing to it, he wasn't a charity, still, it was nice to hear. "Yeah." He said simply, nothing else to say. He drank a bit more, before glancing back at the rear of the bar, where the dancers and the private rooms were. He drummed his fingers before standing up. He really shouldn't, but he had some more caps than usual, and he might not live to see the next day. It would be a shame to die with regrets, even small ones.

A few hours later, feeling a little better than before, Chase walked for possibly the last time out of the Clearwater Station gate and up to the surface of the Dead City. The pleasant memories of his previous distraction faded in his mind as he reminded himself of where he was, and what one stupid mistake could do to you. He checked the map on his Pipboy again before slipping it into a leather pouch on his hip. Just up a few streets, then over and out onto the road. After that it was almost a straight shot up to this Vegas place.

His nightvision bathing everything emerald, he crept along familiar paths that he'd used a dozen times before, knowing which places offered security and concealment, what he knew was stable and wouldn't fall or collapse on you for putting too much weight on it. His heart was beating faster than he was used to, maybe he was excited to be leaving this place? Maybe he was afraid that this last journey would be worse than any before, some superstitious part of his mind telling him that the Dead City wouldn't surrender him, wouldn't let him leave alive. He'd trespassed in this place for too long, defied its masters too many times, and it felt so fitting that it would wait until he had a real hope to look forward to before snapping shut around him like a bear trap, finally taking its revenge.

The City had a memory like that, it seemed to have a knack for punishing those who were too good, who found too many secrets. Again, probably just the ramblings of superstitious drunks, but it put him on edge regardless. He hid in the shadow of a storefront awning as he saw a humanoid figure shambling across the street ahead of him. The ghost, like a desiccated, dried corpse, shambled across the open space before finally vanishing into a dark door. Odd, they didn't usually come into the streets unless they were chasing something.

He frowned, zooming in with his goggles a bit to look down the streets, seeing a few other figures in the distance staggering and stalking in their hunch-backed gait in the open, illuminated in the strobes of half-functional streetlamps. Chase grimaced, this was not normal. He'd been working these ruins for a good chunk of his short life, he'd never seen behavior like this before. Still, who could say they understood how the ghosts operated?

He took a side path, abandoning the familiar route he had intended to take for a road he didn't usually go down. It was a little roundabout but he couldn't complain. That seemed to work for a while but then he started seeing the watchers. The long figures standing atop rooftops scanning the streets, only visible in outline against the faint light creeping through the shroud. What was this, had something or somebody stirred them up?

He kept heading north, alarm bells ringing in his head as he saw more movement, making him more a bit faster. If they were stirring, it wouldn't matter if he was stealthy, they'd find him eventually, they always found you eventually if there were enough of them in the area, if they got it in their minds to chase you down. They were single minded like that, the only thing that could dissuade them is if they realized they'd starve to death trying to get at you, barring that they never lost interest, never just let you go. North and East, North and East, the buildings would thin, no more high rises, he could push across open ground. The river was to his West, he couldn't go there, and South was the wrong direction entirely. He thought he saw movement behind him so he ducked down a side street and kept moving, not quite running, rifle in his hands in a death grip.

The tall buildings around him were beginning to slip away, each row shorter than the last, up ahead he could see open ground half obscured by the shroud as it turned into fog on the ground. He was almost there, he couldn't hear any pursuit behind him, he turned the last corner before the edge of the city, and stopped dead.

There was a pack of them waiting there, standing in the middle of the street, just standing there and waiting. One jabbed its arm at him and hissed, and with that bone-chilling howl, the sound of a dying breath amplified tenfold, the others charged.

Chase did not like fighting ghosts, they weren't invincible and they weren't smart, but they had a cleverness about them that could get you killed if you discounted it. They also had no fear of death at all and didn't seem to notice pain very well. They were only flesh and blood though, no matter how people liked to play them up as monsters from beyond the veil. He opened fire, automatic rifle chattering and tearing through the first rank, there were half a dozen at least, maybe more, they were all so pressed together he couldn't tell really.

When the AK clacked empty he slung it quickly and drew his magnum, there were a few left standing. The powerful reports echoed loudly as he slammed big bullets into the ones still coming, three left, two, one still coming. He saw metal glint on its hand as it lashed out at him and he put it down. Chase reloaded quickly, letting the spent brass clatter to the pavement, before he looked down again, he hadn't seen it wrong. Metal, the ghost had a metal claw of sorts affixed to its hand, two long curved blades mounted on a bracer to cut when it clawed at you. He hadn't ever heard of them using weapons, they were too dumb for that, they couldn't even figure out how to open a door without breaking it down.

He leaned down to look closer when he heard the hiss-crack of something else shooting at him, making him drop. He felt the heat on the back of his neck and rolled, seeing another red beam shoot out at him. A laser, someone was shooting at him with a damn laser. He frantically crawled behind an rusted car and slammed a new magazine into his rifle, sending the first round home with a satisfying click. He counted three heartbeats, trying to figure out what to do, when the plan came to him. He pulled one of the dead ghosts closer to him, grabbing its neck before he slowly pushed it up over the hood of the car, waiting with baited breath.

Another few shots made glowing craters on the far wall, before one hit the corpse in the head and he dropped it, waiting. He heard footsteps, slowly coming closer, tentative at first but more confidant as the figure approached. Closer, closer, it was almost here. When the figure was about to come around the front of the car Chase rose in a crouch and put four rounds into its chest, sending it crumpling. He shot it twice more, and it finally stopped moving, but he kicked it for good measure.

It was a ghost, a ghost in clothes, not just rags but actual clothes. He didn't recognize them though, it seemed almost like some kind of costume and bits of armor, elaborate colorful, with some ceramic plates over its most vital parts. Its face was painted over the withered flesh, it was intelligent, it had shot at him. Remembering where he was, that he was still in danger, he grabbed he laser pistol it had dropped and started running into the night. He didn't stop running for a long time, when his legs finally gave out and he dropped panting to the ground.

But when he looked back, he'd left Bullhead long behind him.


	8. The Upswing

The shroud continued to thin as he walked, and eventually he realized that his Geiger counter had quieted to the occasional tick of background radiation. It was such an alien idea to him that it didn't occur at first, that he could take his filter mask off when above ground and in the open. He was hesitant but he couldn't just leave it on forever, so he cautiously reached up and gingerly removed the mask, taking a cautious sniff of the air to test for chemical contamination. Nothing, it smelled unlike anything he'd experienced before. No chemical tang, but none of the smells he associated with safety either. No press of unwashed bodies, no smell of cooking fires on the back of the throat, nothing. Just fresh, clean air and a hint of plant life.

He was on the western side of the Colorado River for the first time in his life, this place seemed so strange to him. It was open and flat like nothing he'd ever known, he'd grown up in tunnels, basements and with buildings all around him. Here the land was flat and open, natural. Furthermore, he could see until vision simply failed him, that was new. Before you could see as far as the tunnel led, or until the shroud obscured everything in fog, but here there was just the horizon stretching out until everything faded and blurred into a meaningless jumble at the edge of the world. And the sky, he felt like he might fall up into it. It yawned above him infinite and black, with twinkling lights and the great disc of the moon staring down like a giant eye. He would only occasionally peek up at the sky as if worried it might snatch him up into that infinite abyss. And before him, the road stretched onwards.

His Pipboy kept him confidant at least, he knew he was on the right track, stay on this road all the way until he reached the big city to the north, simple enough. He just had to make the journey, and a little music now and then was a nice change to the whistling wind blowing over the endless plains and scrubland. He was on edge, and it took him a while to realize why he had been on edge, there was nothing leaping out to attack him. He had grown used to the dangers of the Dead City, and to the threats within the Metro tunnels, but out here there was simply nothing. Not nothing like a yawning door frame, or a broken window, that kind of nothing might hide something deadly. Out here there was simply emptiness, there was nothing here, not even anything dangerous. At least as far as he knew, he realized for the first time that for all his experience he was utterly ignorant of the dangers of this territory, or of the people he might encounter. Hopefully just being polite and respectful was universal.

Sunrise had been a shock. He knew the sun existed, he'd heard it described, seen drawings, but he had never seen it himself, only knowing it as a general brightening of the shroud overhead, turning the fog and clouds from dark grey, to light grey. But this, this giant furnace in the sky, a massive glowing orb that set the clouds on fire with dozens of colors he hadn't even the capacity to imagine, it struck him dumb to see it. It also left him squinting and half blinded, holding one hand up to shield his eyes. He had to undo his coat, normally it was so good keeping him warm but in his heat it was insufferable, to say nothing of the police Kevlar vest he wore under it but he refused to remove that in any event.

He had been walking for hours when he saw the stream, rushing along a little ways off the road. He didn't think anything of it at first, until it occurred to him that, once again, this wasn't like anything he was familiar with. Just because the water back home had to be filtered and processed before it was safe to use for anything, didn't mean that this would be a radioactive poisonous soup. He went over to the stream, never having seen water this blue and sparkling before, and scanned it with his Pipboy. No radiation beyond the norm, a small sample showed no toxins, nothing.

Making a small 'humph' of surprise, he got out the water bottle he'd been drinking from and dunked it in the river. That was refreshingly easy, he normally had to barter with the man who ran the water purifier in order to… Chase stared at his hand, the one he'd just put in the river. He capped the bottle and put it down, holding up his hands and looking at them. His left was its usual self, his right hand had changed color, it was white and… clean, he realized. Water was always valuable in the Metro, ran in from pipes that scooped it out of the Colorado, but it was always dirty and poisoned by the shroud and after filtering and purifying nobody would be so wasteful as to just dump it over themselves. He looked from his suddenly clean hand to the river, back to his hand, back to the river, and another little moment of comprehension dawned. His pack hit the ground with a thump and Chase pulled at his clothes with a sudden desperate urgency, and when finally rid of them splashed out into the first truly clean water he had ever seen in his life.

XXXXX

About an hour later, Chase was crouched down next to the river, his Pipboy perched on a rock and playing some music as he worked, cleaning every last article of clothing in the river. He still wasn't wearing anything, letting the sun dry him off a bit first. All his clothes were so filthy that trying to dry off or put something on at this point would entirely defeat the point of having bathed in the first place. For the first time he could remember he felt clean, it was almost alien. He was really surprised by how much his hair had changed color, going from a dark grimy color, almost black, to its natural thundercloud grey. He had finished the task of wringing the caked up muck and filth of years out of his clothes, some of which had completely changed color, and had set them out on rocks to sun dry when he heard a splash up the river.

All of his survival instincts kicked in at once, jumping to snatch up his AK before crouching in the long grass and listening, heart thumping in his chest. Listening intently he heard… humming? Creeping through the long grass by the riverside, he peered carefully out and saw another first. The first native of this big open country he saw was a young woman in a white shirt and jeans, with a large wheelbarrow carrying big plastic water jugs, bending down to fill a pitcher in the river. She wasn't armed, didn't seem dangerous, humming to herself as she worked. The wheels were turning in Chase's head, she didn't have provisions for a long journey, that meant people had to live near here. Maybe a place to stay or stock up on supplies?

"Excuse me." He said politely, standing up.

The lady jumped and yelped, dropping her jug in the river with a splash where the current started to carry it away. Chase reacted quickly, walking over to grab it, in the Metro every personal possession was greatly valued, losing anything might be the little thing that pushed someone beyond their ability to survive, it was common courtesy that if you could save someone's stuff, you did so, and hoped they did the same for you later.

"Here, sorry I scared you." He said, holding it out for her. She just stood there staring at him. "I won't hurt you." He assured her. He had a niggling little thought in the back of his mind that maybe a naked man with a rifle handing you a jug of water was not normal in whatever community she came from. "Are you alright?"

"Um, fine." She said finally, taking the jug back, water sloshing out. "You startled me is all."

"I'm sorry about that, I heard someone else and got worried." He said simply, relaxing his grip on his rifle before slinging it over his back in an attempt to seem friendly. "Is there a station near here?"

"Uh, station?" She asked, looking at him in curiosity before looking away again quickly.

"Town, sorry I meant town." He corrected. "Someplace I can buy food or sleep?"

"Oh, well, I'm from Palm Gardens, it's just up the road, I only came to fetch some water." She said, pointing over her shoulder.

"Good, good, I was just washing my clothes, could you give me a minute? I'd like to see this place."

"Oh, sure, sure." She said, seemingly to get her composure a little.

"Great, just give me a minute. Um, are you sure you're alright?" He asked, a little concerned.

"What?" She asked, as if he'd just snapped his fingers in front of her face, seeming to startle her out of something.

"Your face is going red, are you ill?"

"Oh, um, I'm fine." She assured him.

He narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure about…"

"Fine!" She snapped, going back to filling her water jugs, spilling half the water onto the ground with how quick she was moving.

Chase shrugged, walking back over to get dressed and grab his gear. Surface people were strange.

XXXXX

Palm Gardens, as it turned out, was a very, very small town. Little more than a gas station be the roadside and a cluster of houses behind that. The young woman, whose name was Lila, opened up a bit more as they walked back, telling him more about her town and what life was like there.

"It's really small all told, just a few families, but really we're like one big family. The Johnson family works the farm, my folks own most all the houses, and Peter and his ladyfriend run the store." She said, pointing to the gas station in the distance as they walked nearer. "This is one of the only major roads up towards Vegas, so we get a good amount of caravans coming up from the southern stretches of the NCR."

"The NCR?" He asked, only getting a few words in edgewise.

"Did you grow up under a rock or something?"

"Something like that." He shrugged.

"Oh, well the NCR is a big country that's mostly to the West of here, all the way to the sea is their territory, we're basically on the border. And travelers and traders head on up the road to Vegas and back, and we're one of the watering holes they stop in at. My folks own the houses, see, so people stay here for a day or two to rest the Brahmin and stock up on supplies, but what with the dustup in the Mojave business has been down a bit."

"I heard on the radio, some kind of battle?" He'd never been in a fight that involved more than six people.

"Yeah, bunch of savages from the East I hear, we never really saw anything of that here though, too small and out of the way, we get along fine."

"That's good. I know a few places like that." He said, thinking back to Henry's bar. There seemed to be a good number of differences between that and this place though. No drunk people, for one. No naked people on stages either. And the only music was some mournful guitar strains coming from a radio set out on a table.

"Good Afternoon miss Lila." Said the man who had to be Peter, nodding to her. Chase couldn't stop staring at his big, wide brimmed hat.

"Afternoon Peter, look what I found down by the creek." She said, pushing her wheelbarrow of water bottles over near the curb, a woman in a sun dress coming to pay her for them and start pouring the water into a big tank.

"Well hello stranger, headed up the '95 to Vegas?" The man asked.

Chase tore his eyes away from the hat, its wide brim wobbling about whenever he spoke. "Yes, headed to Vegas, going to find some work."

"Good, good, looking to buy some supplies?"

Chase considered before nodding, heading into the gas station's convenience store, which was now decked out as a general store. He got some dried fruit, which sounded very appealing to him, and some salted meat. When he saw how cheap the food was he went back and bought three times more, nobody in the Metro would sell food for that little, but then again food was probably a lot easier to get up here, Lila said they had their own farm. And it probably wasn't what he thought of as a farm, which was a dark room where they grew mushrooms off of any rotting biomass they had on hand. He also bought a wide soft hat called a boonie, which should help keep the sun out of his eyes all day.

His pack comfortably laden with supplies, he went back out, seeing his guide still waiting there, chatting with the other woman. "You said you had rooms for the night?" He asked.

"Oh yeah, as long as you've got the caps, or something to trade for." She said with a nod.

"I have some skills I could trade. I can fix things, for one."

"I'll ask papa if he has anything broke you could take a look at." She said cheerily.

'Papa' turned out to be a very large man in his late sixties or so, blonde hair whitening towards grey. He was nice enough, though his voice was loud enough to hurt Chase's ears when he spoke, and more when he laughed. He also had a tendency to slap people on the back when he laughed if you stood too near him, so Chase kept his back pressed firmly against the wall whenever he was in the same room as the man.

It turned out the little settlement got some of its power from a series of small wind turbines, and one of them was breaking down, so Chase spent most of his evening standing up atop a platform, with his hands buried in a generator's guts until it finally started working properly as the sun began to set.

"Hey, got it working?" A familiar voice asked.

"Yeah, seems to be going fine now." He said, dropping to the ground. He'd hung his coat and pack in the room they'd given him, working in an old pair of military fatigue pants and a white shirt, it was strange to keep the beating sun off.

"Oh good, papa will be real happy, hey we're about to have dinner and you're invited to join, so come on."

He blinked, surprised. "Will you charge me more for that?"

"No, just being friendly, nobody else is staying here right now so I think my folks just want some company."

He mulled it over, but free food was free food, so he followed.

XXXXX

The dining room was large, well lit, and cozy in a way, with a big oval shaped table in the middle. The lady of the house had conscripted her children to carry plates and cups out, and set out a big pitcher of brownish liquid that he thought had to be tea of some kind. Eventually the whole family was sat down together, mother and father, an older son, a small boy and Lila.

He had never eaten with company, really, so this was an alien and vaguely terrifying experience. There were so many rituals and apparently important social niceties. First you had to wait until serving dishes were passed around, then wait until everyone had everything they wanted until you started eating, and you couldn't just reach over for things, you had to ask someone to pass it to you. Still, his repeated mumbled apologies seemed to keep them from getting angry at him, the mother of the family in fact reacting like he was a small child who was just not learning the lesson being taught.

Eventually he got the hang of it, and while the tea was sickeningly sweet, it was actually kind of nice. The meat at least tasted the same as most everything he'd eaten before, so it was nice having even that little bit of the familiar in this place.

"So, you're from down south of here, but not the NCR?" The older son asked.

"From a place called Bullhead, it's to the east mostly." He responded before getting another bite.

"Never heard of that place, do many people live there?"

"Yes, but everyone lived underground, the surface isn't safe." He explained, drinking more tea.

"Radiation?" The father asked knowingly.

"That and the ghosts. Uh, monsters? Look like people but all withered and burned?"

"Oh, ghouls." Lila responded, after their momentary confusion.

Chase shrugged. "Yes, there are lots of them there, it's not a safe place really but people live there, most don't know anything about what it's like out here, this is all new to me."

He finished his plate and looked guiltily at the serving tray with more meat on it, the mother smiled and offered him some more. "It's nice to see someone appreciates my cooking." She said with a laugh.

"It's very good, reminds me of home a little." He complimented, taking more.

"Oh, did you raise pigs in Bullhead?" Lila asked, seemingly constantly wanting to talk about something with him.

"Pigs?"

It was Lila's turn to be confused. "Um, big round animals, about this tall, raise them for meat?" She held her hand over the floor to indicate size.

He blinked, looking down at what he'd been eating. "Um, some yes. I thought this was… Chicken." He said lamely as they looked at him. "It tastes like chicken."

Thankfully that awkward moment passed without further comment, and Chase spent a little time describing some of his more dangerous forays to the surface for family, their youngest very excited. He seemed to think it had all been some fantastical adventure but it hadn't seemed like that at the time, it was just a job with risks.

Eventually dinner was done and he helped with the dishes, before retiring to his rented house for the night. It seemed wasteful to have this big house all to himself, but there wasn't any reason not to use it, there was nobody else staying there at the time. He was sitting in a chair so padded he thought he was sinking into it when a knock came at the door.

"Lila." He said simply as he opened to see her.

"Hi, Chase. Um, can I come in?" She asked, looking over her shoulder.

He stood aside, closing the door for her. "Is there something I can do for you?"

They chatted for a bit, she seemed nervous but there wasn't any danger here, no threat as far as he could tell, sometimes glancing out the window to make sure nothing had followed her to reveal why she seemed nervous. Perhaps he was just oblivious, or used to different cues, but it wasn't until she stepped inside his reach and placed a hand on his chest that he realized why she was here, he nodded without a word.

"Just don't tell my pa, alright?" She asked as she followed him to the bedroom he'd rented.

"Not a word." He promised, removing his shirt. "So what do you want?"

"Excuse me?" she asked as he turned, her body language looking like someone who had stepped off the top of a staircase expecting one more stair.

"For this, from me, what do you want?" He asked, pointing to the bed.

He could see the gears turning in her head, and she didn't seem to like what they ended up making. "What do you mean, are you implying, that you would, that I'm a… !" She glared at him, her pose going from eagerly expectant to enraged in a few heartbeats.

Chase was visibly confused, frowning and taking a step back. "Are you alright?"

She glared daggers at him. "No I'm not alright, did you think this was a brothel?"

"No, but"

"Do you think I'm a whore or something?!"

"I didn't, but"

"Do you think this was all about money or something, that I'd be so low as to"

"Please stop yelling!" He said, taking another step back. Maybe it was his expression that made her stop mid rant, even if his words didn't. Half confused, half scared, brow twisted in a knot of uncomprehending worry. "I'm sorry I insulted you, I didn't understand."

Her towering rage dissipated almost as quick as it had come. "What, what do you mean?"

"I just… didn't think you'd want to do that for… nothing." He said lamely, looking away. "I'm not used to. I mean that I thought you would want something from me, since this is your place, I can't say no without losing the bed, so I thought you wanted more payment from me, I mean… I already ate and I have the bed so I thought…" He cut it off before he made things worse. "I'm sorry, I didn't understand, this place is strange to me." He said, sighing. It was true, he just hadn't expected her to just offer that, out of the blue, no strings attached. He'd never had sex without money changing hands first."

She looked sad, rather than angry. "I. I'm sorry too, I didn't mean, I mean your ways are different, I shouldn't have gotten so mad at you, you didn't know what I was doing."

He nodded, turning away. "Maybe you should just go, I don't want to cause more trouble and…" he wisely shut his mouth as she pushed him down onto the bed.

As the night went on, he decided once again that surface people were very strange, but eventually decided that he could probably get used to it.

XXXXX

He said his goodbyes the next day, the people here very friendly despite him only staying in a rented room for the night. He gave Lila a smile, and said goodbye without even blinking to her father, before he continued his road north long up the lonely road. He saw some interesting animal life off the beaten path, big lizards that walked on their hind legs, skittering about. There were some giant ants pulling meat off a dead Brahmin to carry back to their hill somewhere in the distance, birds wheeled overhead. For the most part the road was clear and open and empty, nothing cluttering the path or distracting him, simply walking along and listening to the music from his Pipboy, trying to learn as much as he could from the news broadcasts and PSAs between songs.

He spent the next night in a rather larger town called Calnevari, which was fascinating for being much more active. More people to observe, some local news to overhear, he talked for a while in a bar with some locals and tried to get a feeling for the area. Sadly his bed for the night did not come with a pretty girl, but he took what he could get. He still slept better than he ever had before, and set out the next day northwards.

His first sign that he was coming up on something different, entering this Mojave territory rather than just open countryside, was when he saw a number of large blocky shapes in the road. He'd heard of these things, but he'd never seen one, he'd only even glimpsed a few robots back in the Metro but those looked woefully small and weak compared to these big rolling ones. A patrol of four was moving along the road, their single tires humming as they rolled along, the patrol halting while one turned towards him with its television face.

"Greetings traveler." The stoic soldier face said in a tinny voice. "Be advised that the town of Searchlight is not safe, and is currently classified as a radiation danger zone. Please observe the signs and move around the town at a safe distance."

"Thank you, uh, I will." He said, looking the machine over.

"Welcome to the Mojave, enjoy your stay." It said, before turning abruptly and rolling off again.

Searchlight felt familiar at least, it looked equally dead to his own home. Beyond simply being damaged, there was a strange way to feel that the life had gone out of a place. But while Bullhead looked dangerous and at times even enigmatic, Searchlight was just sad.

He dutifully observed the radiation warning signs and picked his way around the town, until the land looked less sick and he found his way back to the road. Signs of life started to pick up again as he saw a strange outline on the horizon. Coming closer revealed that the giant lizard was not in fact dangerous, but was a sign or tower of some kind, it seemed absurd to him but again, surface people, weird. He spent a night in the hotel there, before he continued heading on north.

The patrolling robots grew thicker, and he had to check his map more often to not get lost in the mostly abandoned, heavily damaged buildings. He asked one of the bots if this area was safe, and it informed him that he was in a secured zone, something called the Fiends had been driven out, and he was assured they were in no danger. He kept his rifle in hand all the same as he made his way along.

The number of people walking about surprised him at first, they weren't inside their town or rushing about, but walking around, maybe going to visit people or to do business. The simple ease with which people moved about was surprising to him, but this place seemed better by the day. Cheaper food, friendlier people, not trying to kill you every hour of the day. He wondered if they realized how good they had it. Eventually he followed his Pipboy to this McCarran place, stopping for a minute to admire the big spire with the circle on the top that peeked over the sturdy scrap metal walls around the city proper.

"Visiting, trading or joining?" A sentry standing outside the gate asked as he walked up.

"Joining." He replied, slinging his rifle.

"At least you look like you know what you're doing." He said, turning and pushing a button, the gate trundling open. "Head on into the main building and go to the recruiting desk, can't miss it.

Nodding his thanks, Chase went inside, looking around at the camp. The parking lot was full of tents and sheet metal buildings propped up against the walls. There were recruits running laps or doing other exercises, some soldiers on guard duty, but the place felt empty, the ranks still needing to be filled, bunks ready and waiting for recruits to fill them. Entering the terminal building, and taking a moment to stare at the planes hanging from the ceiling, he saw the line of new recruits talking to people at what were once the ticket counters. He walked over, sitting down across from someone free. "I want to join the Army." He said simply and clearly.

It turned out to be a little more complicated than that, there was a whole interview process. He thought the man behind the counter might have been getting annoyed, as whenever he was asked if he had ties to this group or that group the process had to stop for a few minutes as the man explained who each group was. The Fiends, the Brotherhood, the Legion, so on and so forth. The questions about why he wanted to join the army were more simple, 'to get paid'. Eventually he'd signed everything that needed to be signed, feeling a little nervous about signing up for a tour of duty rather than just a job. But still, it was a steady job, and a damn bit better than anything he'd enjoyed before. After that he was sent into the inner courtyard, over to a large tent with a red '+' sign on the side, for a physical.

"So what is this for?" He asked curiously, as a middle aged man in a long white coat looked at him, in a smaller sub room of the big tent.

"Just a checkup, have to make sure you're in proper health before you join, can't have any diseases or medical issues causing problems." He assured him.

Oh, well that was simple enough then. The doctor asked him about his medical history, which was just a long list of Chase saying 'no' when asked about various medical issues. He had never really been sick beyond the occasional cold or fever, and he'd always gotten over it himself. The only exception was to the questions about whether he was sexually active, and how so roughly. Those categories were always 'yes'. Though he couldn't see why anyone cared.

That annoyance over with, and having learned several words for very frightening diseases he wasn't sure he was glad to know existed, and finally got around to the physical part of his physical. Stripped again and found satisfactorily lacking any serious damage, though sporting enough scars to show his dangerous profession, everything seemed routine until the doctor got out a little mirror on a stick and stuck it into his mouth.

"Huh, that's odd." He said thoughtfully.

"What's odd?" He asked, though his mouth was open and his tongue pushed down, so it was more like "Hwups obb?"

"Hmm." The doctor said, leaning in. Chase was not someone given to nerves or embarrassment, but this had to be the most awkward moment he could remember, two separate sticks shoved in his mouth, someone mumbling to themselves while looking at his teeth, and he had no pants. The pay had better be everything promised. And that food had better be good, he thought to himself. Eventually the doctor pulled back though, letting him speak properly again.

"You have a bit of unusual dentistry." The doctor said, cleaning his tools and setting them down. "You come from… Bullhead yes?" He asked, checking his notes. When Chase confirmed it he nodded. "Interesting, and would you say you're a normal example of people there?"

"I suppose so, I've never noticed any real differences." He said with a shrug, though to be honest whenever he was inspecting another human body it wasn't ever in a medical setting. Usually a brothel, or a kitchen, but he'd never noticed any oddities.

"Interesting." He said, taking some furious notes. "The first three molars on the top and bottom jaw, behind the canines, have been replaced with more incisor teeth, and your incisors and canines are somewhat enlarged, compared to the average for a male of your age and build."

Chase felt over his teeth with his tongue, counting the three sharp teeth behind the big sharp one. "That's not normal?"

"No, not in regular humans. If you're a good example of people where you come from, you might qualify as a minor divergent subspecies."

"So you're saying…"

"Congratulations son, you're a mutant." The doctor said with a chuckle. "That would explain your somewhat unusual hair color I suppose, most your age don't have natural grey hair. Don't worry, you can still join, despite that oddity you're otherwise entirely healthy for a human male of, I'd say 22 years old. I deem you fit for service, the mutations seem basically cosmetic though I would like to do a more in depth study of your population at some point, see if anything else is different under the hood."

Still a little surprised by the revelation, Chase shrugged and got dressed in the simple fatigues he was given. "You wouldn't like my home doctor, and I don't think it would like you."

XXXXX

Chase's first week in the Army was difficult. Not the training, that wasn't too difficult. They were overseen by a surprisingly old man who called himself Master Sergeant Johnson, but despite his advancing age seemed to be made of much sterner stuff than most of the recruits. He carried himself like a fighter, it was in his bearing, his body language, the way he spoke, Chase could tell this was a man of longstanding experience.

There was a lot of running, and a lot of jumping, climbing, and other such exercises on a large obstacle course set up within the inner court of the terminal, that was easy for him, his body hardened and skills sharpened by his long years of braving the Dead City and all its perils. Classes were also interesting to him, though there weren't enough of those for his liking. He soon learned that the recruits here came from all over the Mojave region, which seemed very large to him when he'd realized the scale on the maps they were showing in class, so everyone had to be taught about everything around the Mojave. He learned about the different towns, the important resources and locations. Helios, Hoover Dam, the Vaults, trade routes, water pipelines, farms, all the important things that their society needed to keep working. He learned about the major campaigns the region had seen before, of the NCR and the Legion, the Brotherhood and the various raider factions that continued to cause problems for the outlying settlements.

No, what was difficult was the regimented lifestyle, keeping to the schedule, waking up and going to sleep at the exactly specified times, every hour of every day was planned out and any deviation, no matter how small was punished. He had been angrily reprimanded for getting something to eat outside the allowed times, he'd had to run laps for that but he didn't really see how that was a punishment. They'd cut his hair down to a fine stubble, but they did that to everyone, he didn't much care since he'd just cut it with a combat knife to keep it from bunching up in his helmet. What really annoyed him was how they locked up all his gear and personal belongings in a trunk, including his Pipboy, he rather liked having that thing. They promised him he'd get it back once he finished basic training, so he didn't get that mad though.

The food was good at least, and the bunk comfortable, he heard the other recruits complaining about both constantly but it was a lot better than what he was used to so he simply tuned them out. Clean water, bread, corn, beans, potatoes, carrots, some dark meat called beef. When he'd seen cuts of white meat he'd made sure to ask that it was pork, just to avoid confusion. He'd tried a brown drink called coffee and found that he liked it, but then found he had difficulty blinking for an hour afterwards.

Finally they left the walls of McCarran to do something more practical, it had been two weeks since the training had begun, they'd been given rifles and pistols, dressed in their fatigues and headed out into the wider world, evidently they were going to go practice survival skills out in the wilderness. He was carrying his rifle, a 5.56 service rifle with a wooden stock and leather sling over his shoulder, a 9mm handgun in its holster and a small backpack on his shoulders. The new uniform felt strange, but it was functional enough, rugged fatigues, a dull green coat worn over a Kevlar vest, a belt with numerous pouches and a leather chest rig holding spare magazines for his rifle, a hard helmet and a long cloth to wrap over your neck and face to prevent irritation from wind and blown dust as well as wide clear goggles to protect the eyes. After having worn essentially the same set of clothes for years it was difficult to get used to, the weight felt wrong.

"You alright man? You're walking like you've got tacks in your boots."

He turned, seeing another of the recruits next to him, the only thing visible under his uniform were his blue eyes.

"I'm fine." He replied simply, walking on.

After a few minutes of silence he spoke up again. "People talk about you, you know."

"What?" He asked, surprised, looking over to the other trooper again.

"I mean, you eat alone, you don't talk to anybody, you always seem like you're off in your own little world. Nobody can decide if you're nuts, hiding from something or just have a huge stick up your ass."

Chase frowned, "I don't have anything up my"

"I mean being an antisocial jerk." The other trooper quickly corrected. "I mean, like that just there, how do you not know what that means?"

"I'm not from around here, we talk differently where I come from." He replied tersely, annoyed that he'd flubbed another local phrase.

"Where from?" Despite his annoyance this person wasn't going to leave him alone.

"South, place called Bullhead."

"Is it nice there?"

Chase slowly turned his head to stare at the other recruit, giving him a long, withering, silent stare.

"Shit, I was just trying to be nice." The other man said, looking away before speeding up and walking up the column, leaving Chase feeling upset for reasons he couldn't quite identify.

XXXXX

They made camp that night in a rocky gulch out in the wasteland, pitching their tents and setting up a guard rotation to keep a constant watch on the surroundings in case anything should try to slink up on them in the night. There was no fire, the sergeant worried that the light might attract something they didn't want coming their way. Chase was slumped against a rock eating a cold can of beans and thinking to himself. He had never been bothered by what people thought of him before, people had thought well of him back in the Metro. He was reliable, dependable, he never went back on a deal, that was all that mattered. He lived alone, bothered nobody, and when he wanted to have company he went to Henry's bar, where company could always be found, even if you had to pay for it first. That was all anybody had cared about, he did his job and wasn't a threat, but here?

These surface people were social in a way he wasn't used to. They ate together, would naturally cluster together to talk, and if you didn't do that with them they seemed to assume you disliked them for some reason. His whole unit, some twenty people, slept ate and showered together, they were always together, every hour of the day, and now that he looked back he was the only one who didn't talk to anybody else at seemingly random times. He realized that they really did those things together, not just at the same time, but together, it was a communal exercise every day.

The others exchanged jokes, stories, casual insults and compliments with the same breath, it seemed a waste of time to him but they liked it. He was harmless, non-threatening, he did his job, but that didn't seem to be enough in this new world, it wasn't enough to simply be useful, you had to be likable. He stood up and walked towards the edge of camp, seeing the trooper from before standing sentry on a small hill.

"We lived underground." He said out of nowhere.

"Huh?" The trooper asked, seeming surprised.

"In Bullhead, we lived underground, the surface was radioactive and poisoned, it wasn't safe."

It was unusual at first, just to talk about something that seemed pointless. This man would likely never see Bullhead, but he still wanted to know about it. Chase told him the basics, the tunnels, the basements, how they had carved their own tunnels between different networks, connecting the Metro lines with the city's utility corridors and the long dried up sewers, each becoming a new community of people looking to stake a claim to uninhabited territory. Eventually he started rambling on at length about the different stations and warrens, one was known for its mushroom farms, and another near the river had hydroelectric power turbines, about the Dead City and its inhabitants.

Eventually the other man started talking too, his name was Roberts and his family were ranchers, raising creatures evidently known for having big horns, trading meat and milk and wool. It was strangely relaxing, just letting his mouth run with someone who wasn't any danger to him, it wasn't often safe to open up like this to someone in the Metro, you never knew what would make someone decide they wanted something you had, or that you might be a threat best dealt with sooner than later.

He was listening to his companion talking about the trade caravans and their routes when he frowned, his survival senses tickling the back of his mind. "Wait, I think I see something." He said, squinting out into the darkness, unslinging his rifle. He heard voices, could barely make them out by moonlight. Roberts pulled out a set of binoculars and checked, cursing under his breath. "Fiends." He breathed, "A dozen or so, might be looking for us, I'm going to warn the others." Roberts turned and started going back to camp at a jog, leaving Chase alone.

A dozen or so, but by all accounts Fiends were stupid, too strung out to fight smart, and he had the element of surprise. Rifle in hand, he crouched down to get cover from the bushes and scrubland grass and stalked off into the night.

XXXXX

These Fiends were loud, brash, and poorly equipped. Only about half of them were armed with ranged weapons, an eclectic mix of battered energy weapons, improvised rifles and small handguns, the others had knives or random objects that could serve as clubs. Their clothing barely qualified as such, and could only be called armor if you squinted and were drunk, it left at least half their skin exposed at any time and seemed to be made of random leather pads and metal plates held onto the body with leather straps. Chase listened from where he crouched behind a rock as they swore and cursed at each other, wandering closer to their camp with murder on their minds, it seemed they did indeed know where they were and were coming with the sole intention of killing them in their camp.

Rather naturally, Chase did not like this plan, and edged around the side of the boulder to hold his rifle steady, sighting in. He wasn't terribly fond of the service rifle they'd given him, it had a smaller magazine and used less powerful rounds than his AK 47, but it was an accurate weapon and by no means a bad rifle. Besides, their pitiful armor couldn't hope to stop any kind of rifle round, against this weapon they might as well have been naked for all the good the random spikes and belts would help them.

He waited until the group had wandered past him before he opened fire, putting two rounds straight into the back of the nearest Fiend with a gun before methodically switching to the next target, squeezing off three more rounds.

As he listened to the cries of anger and shrieking curses, he quickly turned and skulked back off into the night, running low to avoid being an obvious target. He heard the shouts of the Fiends behind him, cursing each other and calling out angry threats. He dropped to the ground, laying perfectly still and silent in a cluster of tall flowering plants that helped break up his outline as he listened to the crunch of approaching footsteps.

The Fiend wasn't even bothering to disguise her approach, holding a machete in her hand as she approached, seeming jumpy and twitchy, probably the chems. She was wild eyed, lips drawn back in a snarl. "When I find you," She hissed angrily. "I'm gonna eat your spleen!"

Chase slipped out of his hiding place and tackled her to the ground, slamming his combat knife into her neck as he took her down, holding the raider down until she stopped moving. Don't tempt me, he thought to himself as he wiped his knife on her shoulder pad and replaced it at his belt.

The gunfire started up a few seconds later, almost two dozen service rifles opening up in concert. The Fiends were all standing around in the open looking for him, they weren't ready for the sudden attack from the opposite direction. For all their anger they were very stupid, and his diversion had achieved what it was meant to, blunting their advance and making them waver while Roberts went for help. Chase stayed on the ground until the shooting stopped, not wanting to catch any stray rounds or be mistaken for the enemy. It didn't take long.

When it was over, he slung his rifle and stood up, walking back towards the camp. "Is everyone alri-"

He was cut off as the Sergeant stormed forwards, grabbing him by the uniform jacket and almost hauling him off his feet. "What the fuck were you thinking, going off on your own!"

Chase blinked, he hadn't expected that, hadn't he done well?

"You ran off without orders, left your platoon and engaged the enemy without orders, you could have gotten yourself or someone else killed!" The man shouted, shaking him in his big fists.

"I thought that" He tried to say.

"You thought shit, recruit! You thought you'd just run off and do whatever the hell you wanted! Get your act together and follow the chain of command, if you're going to just do whatever the fuck pops into your head at any moment of the goddamn day, you're a liability I don't need. Now wash that blood off your uniform before it stains and you disgrace it any further!" He shouted before shoving him aside, leaving Chase to stumble back to camp, too shocked to even get upset.

He didn't talk to anyone until they had returned to McCarran.

XXXXX

He had expected on some level to be thrown out of the training program after that, but strangely nothing seemed to happen. Training ramped up steadily, they drilled with more weapons and tactics in mockup houses made of sheet metal and plywood, trained first aid skills, jargon and call signs, and a hundred other things. Chase started making at least a small effort to get along with people, sitting with them during meals rather than sitting alone, and just listening to them talk. It seemed to be working to some degree at least, there wasn't the hint of resentment like there used to be, so he took it as a small victory. It was a little over a week after their ill-fated training mission that something out of the ordinary happened.

"Chase, come with me." And since it was the Master Sergeant speaking he got up and did as he was told, leaving the rest of the platoon in the barracks to look nervously at each other as he walked out. He kept his cool as they walked across the parking lot, worst case scenario he was out of the program and would have to find work elsewhere, not that bad really. They entered the terminal building, but instead of passing through they went up to the second level, he hadn't been expecting that. He'd never been up here before, this was where all the offices for the more important people were. He was led past offices, filing rooms, radio stations, until finally to an office door which a plaque clearly proclaimed as belonging to the commanding officer. "He's waiting for you." Johnson said simply.

Steeling himself, Chase went inside. The office was simple and Spartan, a terminal on a desk, one window overlooking the Mojave, a rifle on the wall. The man behind the desk was a figure he'd only ever glimpsed from afar, but he hadn't known who it was. He wore simple fatigues and a red beret, his eyes hard and face carved from granite.

"Sit down." He said tersely. Chase obeyed without hesitation.

"I am Commander Boone, CO of this base and in overall command of the Army's formation." Chase remained silent, not sure if he should speak yet. "So, Chase, I've been hearing a lot about you. You left your platoon, took on a dozen Fiends single handed and somehow are still alive. You've behaved perfectly during your training, but you didn't wait for orders. Why?"

Chase had been giving the matter great thought, pouring over it in his mind over and over again. "There wasn't time to talk to the Sergeant, the Fiends would have been in the camp by then, I wanted to stall them and make them waste time looking for me so Roberts could get back and warn the others." He didn't tell the other half of the reason, that he simply hadn't thought to defer to another's judgement to make a decision, he wasn't used to listening to anyone in a crisis, or relying on anyone else to stay alive.

"I see, so you put yourself at risk, acted on your own initiative, tried to use the situation you saw before you." The eyes were as hard and judging as ever, there was no warmth in that voice.

"Yes, sir. There wasn't time to waste trying to do everything I was supposed to, if I'd followed the rules then the Fiends would have marched right into camp following Roberts, someone might have died."

Boone stared at him, long and hard, it was the kind of gaze Chase used to make people shut up and go away. "I reviewed your progress reports, Johnson has a lot to say about you." Chase bet he could think of what the man had to say, probably guess which curse words he'd used. "He said it's a waste of time training you, you already know how to fight, how to survive." Chase was surprised, it might have showed. "He said that you're the only man in your barracks that doesn't bitch and moan, that he might as well have you sit out the physical training because if he actually challenged you the others wouldn't keep up. He has to treat the recruits like greenhorns, rookies, but you're not are you?" Boone's gaze felt like it was reading his soul by this point. "You've got experience, you're dangerous, quick and smart, it's why you're still alive. There's not much we can teach you because you've been teaching yourself all your life, and for a lot longer than any of the volunteers outside. You're used to relying on yourself and you do it well, but you don't do well with direct oversight, you don't fit in with the others and you can't operate properly with a big chain of command, it's counter to your nature."

Chase was a little nervous by this point, he'd never thought about any of these things, but as Boone spoke he had to admit they were all true.

"So that just leaves the question of what to do with you, because you don't have a place in the Army with the rest of those recruits out there. But it would be a shame to waste someone like you, so I'm going to offer you a different option." Chase leaned forward slightly, all ears. "There's a different unit in this Army, not everything can be solved with marching boots and massed soldiers, not every problem requires a full mobilization. There are some things that have to be done quietly, in the dark, with just a few people. The quiet things, the things you need done in shadows. Or missions that go beyond your own borders and require someone who can operate without oversight for extended periods, live off the land. I think you would be a good fit for that, you can be useful there. What do you say?"

Chase processed this as best he could, thinking for a good minute before he responded. "What's the difference, from the regular Army, how will my time be different?"

"You'll get better gear, you can chose your own equipment, you'll be paid more and get other perks and benefits. One other question though. When you joined you told the interviewer you were chasing a paycheck, what I'm offering requires a certain dedication."

"I always follow through on my promises." Chase said coolly. "I was known for that, I don't back out of deals, I don't double cross, when I sign on to do something I see it done. You don't know me, if you knew me then you wouldn't doubt me."

Boone held his gaze for a long silent moment, each staring silently at the other.

"You're in." He said eventually. "The unit is called the Mojave Special Operations Commandoes, M-SOC for short. You're being pulled from your current training regimen, we do things differently in M-SOC. Get your gear from your barracks and say your goodbyes, then report to your new barracks, and Chase. Don't disappoint me." He said, giving him another stare that could bore through steel.

"I won't sir, thank you sir." Chase said, standing and saluting like he'd been taught, which Boone returned.

As he went back to get his gear, he grinned to himself, it seemed that his life in the Mojave was about to change for the better.


	9. Bluffs and Hits

The morning was hot and dry, the wasteland air hung still and heavy, the usual blowing winds stopped by the half-dead forest that surrounded the city. The trees that survived there were harsh and hardy, their bark gnarled and thick by constant exposure to sandstorm and merciless wind. Some of them had been alive when the old world had died, digging their heels in deeper and surviving the firestorm. They were proud old things, harsh things, made strong by the torments they endured daily. They had survived the end of a world, and the painful birthing throes of the new one. They lived on in a world that daily spited their existence, competing in a life or death struggle with each other to leech water from the wasteland soil, and steal life from the sun above, some withering and dying as others grew stronger. As symbols went, they were fitting enough for the people who made their home in the city at the center of the forest. This was Flagstaff, capital city of Caesar's Legion.

But it wasn't really Caesar's Legion anymore, was it, mused Anguis from the balcony of his dwelling. No, Caesar was dead, and now the Legion lay in another's hands. Still, the name remained. It had been a turbulent time after the force from the Mojave had returned. Much had been made of their inevitable conquest of that region, the grand design of their deific leader to take the jewel of the desert and make it his own, the preparations had been underway, the men spoke openly of the glorious future before them. Then the rumors had begun to change. Their force had encountered a great army from the west, another force ready to oppose them. This was brushed aside, they would fall as all others did. But then the first great battle for the Dam had been lost. Of course the guilty had been punished for that failing, this was but a momentary setback.

Years had passed, fresh troops trained and sent out, fortifications built, the threat was seen for the danger it was. Anguis had done his part to aid in that campaign, it had been him that Caesar himself had left in command of the city when he had gone away, he knew it was in good hands with him. He had overseen the troops built up from conscription to deployment, he had stood at the palace and watched as the troops marched out in glorious parade. He had watched a few months later as they came back, battered and beaten. There was no explaining away this defeat, for the first time the Legion was truly defeated and had quit the field in shame. Caesar was dead, the Legion humiliated, all was thrown into chaos.

Anguis sighed, walking from the balcony to dress himself for another day's labor. He had found himself demoted with the return of the Mojave expedition, and his new role irked him greatly, but he had to perform his role, and soon he was walking through the streets of the city. Anguis was not a powerfully built man, he was actually rather small and thin, many whispered behind his back that he was in some way diseased or cursed. Nobody whispered in earshot of him of course, or at least what they thought was earshot of him. For despite his wasting frame Anguis heard much, far more than he ever let on. And despite his weak voice, he knew the words that needed to be whispered, and which ears to whisper them into, to let that voice carry the weight of a thunderstorm.

Anguis the rat, the silvertongue, the liar, those were names he knew well. But the one given to him by Caesar in private, Anguis the indispensable, was the only one he truly ever cared about. And in a climate like this it was more important than ever. As he walked through the streets he passed the Legionnaires, who gave him sideways glares, and the citizens, who tried their best to ignore him. To see one as weak as him in Legion red was absurd to many, such a wretched creature like him should have been killed or thrown to the dogs long ago, but around his neck hung the Mark of Caesar, and all who beheld him knew that to harm him meant to die.

So, safe beneath the strength of another, he walked fearlessly through the streets to the palace itself, mounting the stairway up and inside. None questioned him, doors opened before him, sentries stepped aside, as he walked into the very heart of the Legion's power with unbroken stride, before entering the throne room itself, and beholding the dread figure that sat upon the throne.

Anguis dropped to his knees, prostrating himself before the throne. Be a good dog and grovel, he always told himself, good dogs are kept alive and fed scraps from the table. "Hail Lanius, chosen of the Son of Mars, greatest in all the land."

The figure on the throne, a burnished bronze god in human guise, raised a hand, palm up. "Rise." Grated the deep voice of Lanius.

Anguis did as he was bidden and walked to the side of the throne, once again taking his place at the right hand of Lanius, his protector and tormentor. When the Mojave Legion had returned in disgrace it had been a terrible affair, Lanius had deposed him from his position of power and declared himself the new master of the Legion and all within its conquered territory. But Lanius had been faced with many great obstacles in holding his position. For one, the issue of the defeat itself had to be resolved. Lanius had always disciplined units before by execution and decimation, but here he was the commander. He could hardly execute himself to set an example, and was he to kill one in ten of every single warrior who had fought in Caesar's name? Even that had been an option to him at one point, before Anguis had delicately dissuaded him of that notion.

Lanius could never be persuaded to do anything, not truly. But if you spoke rightly, and with due prudence, you could make him see things a certain way. You could make him have the idea, make him change his own opinion on something. So Anguis had carefully put the idea into his head that to kill one tenth of his entire military was unwise and would make him weaker, so he contented himself by simply beating the life from most of the subordinate commanders who had survived the Mojave debacle.

"How fares the Legion." Lanius demanded, his voice like the crackling of stormclouds, it was the first question he asked every single morning.

"Well my Lord." Anguis gave his traditional reply. "But there are some issues which must be resolved."

Lanius was unmoving, as if he had been carved from metal rather than simply clad in it. His armor, crafted for him at Caesar's order to hide the scarred and savaged man within, had once been glorious and magnificent to behold. It still was, in its own terrible way. The once smooth bronze was now gouged and torn, great nicks and hacks in the thick metal where a foe's blade had savaged the masterwork armor. One horn was missing a tip, broken off in battle, the cloth had been ripped, plates dented and savaged, each marking the testament of a terrible battle. Lanius had never ordered the armor repaired, and none would be so foolish as to suggest it to him. Anguis often wondered why he left his armor in such a state, perhaps as a reminder of the one who had inflicted such harm upon him. Scarred within, scarred without, as Anguis often thought in private moments.

"I have compiled news from some of the farming communities, regarding the recent demands for fresh recruits for the Legion." He began politely.

"There are… complaints?" Lanius asked, the helmet turning fractionally towards Anguis. He knew the danger that tone of voice carried, the threat of an unsigned death warrant.

"There are concerns, my lord." He corrected delicately. "That it could be harmful to the Legion, ultimately. If we move too many able bodies from the fields into the barracks, it will result in a shortfall of food."

Lanius twitched his hand slightly, a dismissive gesture that carried the weight of a hammer. "Irrelevant, the Legion must be made stronger."

"An army cannot fight on an empty stomach, Lord, we will lose more men than we gain if our troops starve in their barracks."

The fingers on Lanius' left hand contracted slightly, as if to form a fist, Anguis held his breath.

"Very well, make whatever changes you deem are needed." The terrible figure intoned, allowing Anguis' heart to start beating again.

The day continued on as most days did, issues were mentioned, dealt with, resolved. A few petitioners were allowed access to the throne room to plead their cases to Lanius himself, then they would be dismissed so that Lanius could confer with Anguis on the matter, before the petitioner was brought back to hear the warlord's ruling. There were of course some things that Anguis did not mention around his master, he could judge his mood through tone and body language, this was an annoyed day, not a good day to bring up unpleasant topics.

Not a good day to say that the other commanders of the Legion were fracturing, when they had seen Lanius declare himself the new master of the Legion. For all his power and fear Lanius was a slave to Caesar, they all were. But he had declared himself free and supreme before all others, if he had done so, had broken the core founding principle of the Legion, was it impossible for them to do the same? Not a good day to mention that the men were whispering of a new figure of myth, the Burned Man had faded into history and been replaced now by a new specter. Legionnaires around campfires whispered of the Man in Black, the Specter of the Mojave, the Killer of Kings. They whispered he was the servant of Pluto, god of the dead, come to claim them, that he could not die, that nothing could stop him. For truly what other being could kill Caesar and leave Lanius scarred and ruined?

No, this was a day for little problems and issues that would make Lanius feel better, optimistic troop reports, spy reports from NCR territory showing them cowering in fear, the things that brought the Monster of the East satisfaction, or whatever twisted emotion he equated with good events. So, like the spider in its web that knew which strands were harmless and which a deadly trap, Anguis picked his way through the day's events. While Lanius was a great warrior, he was no leader of nations, and on some level he knew that. He knew that he needed this wasting, awkward creature to make his world run properly, and Anguis knew that as well. Caesar himself had left him here, telling him to keep the Legion's lands running smoothly while he was gone, and he still intended to do just that. Even if he had to gently pull the strings of a possibly insane killer to make it happen.

XXXXX

Once again under the green glow of a terminal in his office, Alaric read over various reports from across the Mojave. As he read them over, he shuffled his caravan deck with familiar skill, folding the cards in the same complex pattern each time. Vault 34 was proceeding decently, if slowly. Teams of robots, ghouls and supermutants, directed by a few skilled humans in hazmat suits, were clearing the radiation and tainted materials slowly but surely. Damaged pumps were repaired or replaced, contaminated coolant water was pumped clear, radioactive muck scrubbed out and the cleaned surfaces sprayed with anti-rad foam. It was a slow and difficult task, but a self-sufficient already set up arms factory would be worth it in the end.

The other Vaults were coming along much nicer, teams were splicing cables from other, unneeded areas into the patchwork net that would run power from the Vaults to the main network, and the generators of each Vault themselves were deemed operable with few flaws. He started placing the cards out on the table, building caravans, playing against an imaginary opponent, thinking of the counterstrategies and tactics a potential player might use in a game as varied as this.

Veronica continued to worry him with her reports, division in Hidden Valley was increasing steadily, Hardin was gaining support while McNamara's absence made it increasingly clear he wasn't up to leading anymore. At the same time, Hardin's increasingly brazen militancy was turning others against him. The undecided of the Brotherhood were picking their sides. When the shoe fell it would be messy. He finished his hand and started shuffling the deck again.

Reports from Boone were a bit of a comfort, the training was coming along as decently as could be hoped, and there was a good crop of recruits for the M-SOC program they'd drawn up. They needed an answer to the Rangers, and the Legion's scouts, and so far they had found a few good recruits to form the core of the program. As he laid out the cards again, he looked to the southern border of the territory he claimed as part of his state, stretching from the Mojave outpost, to Cottonwood. The NCR was just beyond that little line on the map, they'd make a move before long, he was certain, he didn't want any Rangers slipping in and causing problems, but hopefully they wouldn't make this into a shooting conflict.

The Mojave was really coming together though, in a way he hadn't dreamed to see. Caravans were moving with more confidence, people were traveling more, there was a feeling that this was a community rather than just a few strung out towns. Business was starting to pick up on the Strip, which Alaric was glad to see. Not only because he would bring in more resources for his projects, but also because he owned Gomorrah.

None of the Omerta family had survived the war with the Legion, a few well-chosen lies had gotten them gunning each other down before he picked off the survivors with impunity. Such was the fate of those who would use poison gas on a civilian populace, not to mention the other horrific crimes that family had committed in the name of profit and entertainment. Gomorrah was still the den of sin and carnality it always had been, but he'd taken a page from the Atomic Wrangler with his employees. Decent pay, proper healthcare, curing drug addictions, hiring more bouncers to keep everything safe, they were still a bunch of dancers, hookers and assorted entertainers, but it was amazing how much their lives had turned around when their boss actually cared about them as human beings. For some reason the knowledge that he privately employed the net majority of prostitutes in the entire city was vaguely amusing to him, only in Vegas, he thought to himself.

More seriously, there was the Legion to be dealt with, they had been worryingly absent for some time, he would have sent some forces out to scout but with the Brotherhood situation developing he couldn't risk it, maybe a small scouting mission. He was hoping to put some Duraframe Eyebots into development once they got a production base set up, having them to provide long range recon would be invaluable. If the facilities in The Divide could be salvaged… He sighed, too many projects, not enough experienced manpower to exploit their potential. Dumb muscle was plentiful enough but people with the skill and training to identify, salvage and reconstruct pre-war military technology? Frustratingly rare. He ignored the Bull at his peril, but perhaps another alternative could be reached, maybe an M-SOC unit could recon the territory. But they weren't ready yet, so for now he'd have to cross his fingers and roll the dice once again.

Still, perhaps a more peaceful overture could be made to their other neighbor, he drafted a memo to Cass, asking her to set up some kind of mission to the NCR, get talking with them, see about easing tensions, opening diplomatic relations again. Of all his companions she was the closest thing to an ambassador, being a decent enough negotiator over business dealings, and he knew she had the will to refuse blatantly stupid offers. He just hoped she was more loyal to him than to the NCR, given her wish to see that nation prosper even if she wasn't living there anymore.

Apart from the growing concern in Hidden Valley the Mojave was becoming more secure by the day. The Securitron army had suffered acceptable losses so far, with the hulks salvaged and taken away for rebuilding or scavenging, and the Army was training up, they'd be a formidable force when they were ready. But did he have enough time? He considered his options, before deciding he decided to try his luck, there was another resource he could pull. Worst case scenario they'd say no, if they said yes…

That hope in his mind, he went to get suited up in his power armor. It wasn't usually something he liked to wear on a diplomatic mission, but it never paid to go to Big MT unprepared.

XXXXX

The Sink greeted him with the usual enthusiasm, and he took a few minutes greeting each of the personalities here in turn, doing a slow circuit of the rooms. He gave the nervous little robot a coffee mug, Blind Diode Jefferson a holotape of classic hits, the biological processor some tissue samples from the Mojave's more interesting plant life which made him very, very happy. After that he hopped in the elevator down to the Think Tank itself. He had changed so much here, when random chance had pulled him from the Mojave and dropped him in this place, to be remade by old world technology. Despite the initial horror at his condition, he came to accept it, put his head back the way it was supposed to be, and sorted the old facility out. This place was meant to safeguard the hopes of the future, it was damn time it lived up to the promise.

"THE ORGANIC LIFEFORM RETURNS." Dr. Klein boomed as he walked up the ramp into the Think Tank's central room.

"Hello Doctor, have you been well?"

"FINE, FINE, EVER SINCE THAT WHOLE MOBIUS AFFAIR WAS SORTED OUT." The self-appointed research head thundered. "NOW WE HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN BACK ON COURSE, WITH REAL SCIENCE AT LAST!"

Alaric smiled inside his helmet, they had been improving. The Think Tank had been stuck in their programmed thought loops for so long it had taken a major toll on their psyches, amplifying and compounding their existing mental issues and quirks to insane levels. That was his theory at least, nothing seemed real to them anymore on some fundamental level, nothing mattered because it had all happened before, and would happen again. Since he broke the cycle and let them learn of the world beyond their crater they had mellowed a bit, able to focus on actual research rather than repeating the same experiments long after they had become irrelevant.

"Have you been getting on well with Dr. Mobius?" He asked politely.

"HE STAYS IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, WORKING ON HIS OWN PROJECTS. HE CAN'T HANDLE BEING OUTSHINED BY MY BRILLIANCE, I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN IT BUT NOW I HAVE UNDENIABLE PROOF."

"I'm sure. Do the repairs go well?"

"OH YES, WE'VE PUT THE LOBOTOMITES TO WORK REPAIRING THE FACILITIES ACROSS THE CRATER, I EXPECT FULL OPERATIONAL STATUS IN A MATTER OF WEEKS. I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T NOTICE IT SLIPPING INTO DISREPAIR LIKE THAT."

"The mental loop, it made recognizing anything new difficult, even when something broke or went missing." He surmised. "I'm glad to hear that things are working out properly, there are a few projects that I'd like your help with…"

He explained the situation facing the Mojave, the coming conflict and the problems with the Brotherhood that seemed increasingly likely. Weapons technology, armor, whatever edge this place could give him was needed.

"If we could get some kind of production lined up that would be something, this facility is hardly a factory I know but you must have some ability to produce things in quantity, perhaps setting up a workshop?"

Dr. Dala floated over, considering. "Hello dear, lovely to see you again."

"Dala, nice to see you, is something up?"

The robotic floating assembly bobbed a bit. "Oh I couldn't help but overhear, and I think I might be able to help. I could program the lobotomites to set up a workshop to assemble some things for you."

"They can handle that?" He asked, surprised.

"Small things, simple rote tasks can be programed into them, if it's something they can do by following the same steps over and over again without interruption then they can handle many things, it's just the matter of programming them to do it. How can I be of help, dear?" she asked, hovering closer.

As Dr. Klein made a face of disgust and floated off, he asked her what he had in mind. LAERs and blades, machineguns and combat electronics, everything he could get from Big MT to help him in a war.

"It sounds terribly dangerous, do be careful, I'd hate for anything to happen to you." She said worriedly.

He removed his helmet, gracing her with a winning smile. "Oh I will be, don't worry. Just give me all the help you can and I'll be just fine." He chatted a bit more, talking to the other researchers about some issues he wanted them to work on and discussing a few ideas, before he headed out. With the IFF systems in the crater working properly the lobotomites, cyberdogs and robo-scorpions ignored him now, so he made his way unmolested into the Forbidden Zone to speak with the last member of the research staff.

"Oh, hello there, I didn't expect to see you back so soon." Mobius said as he came inside.

"It's been almost two months." Alaric pointed out.

The floating brain jar seemed confused for a second before shrugging. "Oh well, nice to see you back here, everything going alright out in the world?"

"As well as can be expected, I came to ask your help in helping things along, I know you can be of help to a lot of people."

"Oh? That'd be a nice change, what did you have on your mind?" the scientist asked, seemingly excited at the prospect of doing more than tinkering.

"The Mojave faces danger, threats within and without, and not enough people to keep everyone safe. I need something to help take the edge off, I've spoken with the others and gotten their support with weapons and armor research, but that's long term, I need help now. I'm asking if you're willing to send me your army of robotic laser scorpions." Alaric considered it a point of personal pride he could say that with a straight face.

"Hmm." Mobius scratched his nonexistent chin with his broken monitor panel. "Interesting request. I suppose they're not doing much here anymore, with my colleagues being slightly more sane and busy with their new projects. Still, are you sure it's safe?"

"You can always make more, right?" He suggested. "And you have other defenses already set up. I need the help to keep people safe, without another supplement to the forces I have ready now a lot of people could lose their lives very quickly if things go bad before I'm ready. Even then every bit helps."

The floating brain considered the request. "Weeeelllll….. Alright, of course you need to get them there somehow. The Transportalponder just can't handle that kind of volume, it barely manages to carry you with all your gear as it is."

"I thought as much." He said, laying out a map on the table and pointing. "We're here, the Mojave is there. Near as I can tell the only way to get from here to there is to load up the robots and supplies onto trucks and move them over onto route 95 where it passes by Lave Havasu. Then north along the highway. With the NCR on the west and the Legion to the east, we're squeezed into a very narrow corridor we can move military supplies through, mostly it shouldn't be a problem, lots of open road, but the only real issue is going to be this place, here." He pointed to a city on the very southern tip of the Colorado River. "A city called Bullhead, we have to move through there, even if we just skirt the outsides. We can start moving a few items via VTOL transports but in order to move any major numbers we need that land route. Now we're going to need a lot of trucks and transports and troops for this, so you have some time. But you have those robots ready to muster out when I come calling, alright?"

Dr. Mobius examined the map and nodded. "Right, looks good to me. I just hope you can keep that supply line open, there's a lot of empty territory between here and there."

Alaric nodded. "Yeah, it's a perilous road, but it's the only one we've got for now at least. Thanks for the help Mobius, I know a lot of people are going to be thankful for your help." They chatted a bit more, before Alaric activated the device and returned home to the Lucky 38 with a little pop. It could be tricky, but he was reasonably confident he could pull this off when the time came. He couldn't show his hand too early though, if it became common knowledge he had access to Big MT and all within it? Hardin was chomping at the bit ready to take a power plant and a glorified howitzer from him, he'd go mad if he learned about Big MT. So he had to wait, lay his plans, be ready to move quickly when the time came. And hope he could keep the road clear long enough to get his supplies through.

XXXXX

M-SOC turned out to be a very nice change from the regular army for Chase, the pay was better, he got his old gear back, and the focus was entirely different. Instead of trying to break down and rebuild recruits into obedient grunts, here he was rewarded for his initiative and his experience was valued, it was a nice change. Though as he looked around he realized that some of the others here weren't the most experienced. He supposed it made sense, there wasn't any previous experience to pull on, the army was brand new, so they took anyone who had more than average experience and put them in here. Still, the collection of former scavengers, caravan scouts, bounty hunters and other such rough professions gave them a lot more experience than the various townies and farm boys that were filling out the ranks of the regulars.

They also got nicer gear as well, most of the regulars were making do for now with cast off NCR weapons, 5.56 service rifles, pre-war AR-15 series rifles, M-14 battle rifles, R-91 assault rifles, and so on. The previous occupiers had left a lot of equipment behind in their evacuation, packing their people up and leaving quickly before things went badly or they got stuck. At least that was Chase's explanation for them leaving so much good gear behind. They got the pick of the armory and some better gear as well. His favorite had to be the stock of pre-war riot armor, he'd snagged a suit of that immediately and wore his old clothes over it, discarding the big showy floor-length duster coat. He also got a suppressor for his AK, something he always wished he'd had back in Bullhead.

M-SOC had its own barracks set up, within the McCarran concourse itself rather than having to camp outside. Some still grumbled about the lack of privacy but he found it a little pointless, they all had a lot more personal space now than he did back in Bullhead, and even this was just temporary until they got a dedicated facility set up just for themselves, it seemed selfish and ungrateful to complain.

The training was more interesting as well, long range survival, urban combat and stealth training, the outer Vegas ruins were a fantastic training course. Honestly the only thing he found difficult to deal with was the people. He was used to cramped living and nonexistent privacy, but having to rely and work in concert with others was still difficult. They weren't annoying exactly, it's just that he was used to solitude when he wasn't working, he could always return to his room for peace and quiet, here there was no solace from the constant talking and moving and just plain dealing with people.

They were divided up into a number of rough units, informed that they wouldn't always be deployed with the full unit, but that these are the people they should be prepared to work alongside and thus get familiar with. There was a large man with a fondness for large weapons whose name was Mark but insisted everyone call him 'Five Card'. Chase had asked once about the name but the explanation made no sense to him. Caleb was a field medic who was often called 'Sawbones', at least that made sense though since he always had a bonesaw in his equipment bag. Tony was their hacker and general tech expert, who often told tall tales about his glorious past before coming to Vegas, almost all of these stories contradicted each other. Finally there was Royce, the sniper.

Of all of them Chase got along with Royce best, because he was quiet and innofensive and rarely bothered him. The marksman often just sat silently and read, which Chase usually also did in his general vicinity. When they were being quiet and alone together people seemed less likely to bother them. The locals here had many strange customs and practices but he was starting to adapt to them and his quiet observation was yielding results. Meals were considered social time, and eating along made people annoyed with you, so even if he didn't speak when he shared the same table they seemed to respond to him better. You were expected to be fully clothed when not in the midst of bathing, which was new because in Bullhead it was difficult to wash anything and most people had one or two sets of clothes at most, so you needed to stretch their use out as long as you could, rather than here having a lot more and able to wash them every day if you really wanted to. For the most part though he was quite proud of his ability to adapt to this new culture, until he ran up against something he just wasn't prepared for.

"Hey Chase, the boys and I are Gonna go hit the Strip for a little R&amp;R, you in?"

He looked up, vaguely annoyed from the book he was reading on his Pipboy to see 'Five Card' standing over him, wearing the big goofy grin others found endearing.

"R&amp;R?" He asked, dubiously.

"Rest and Relaxation, you know, fun? You do understand this concept yes?"

Chase grimaced slightly, to him this was fun, free time, clean clothes and a soft bed were all he really needed. Still, the words of his old bunkmate drifted across his thoughts, that he would have to rely on these people in a crisis so he might as well try to get to know them better.

"I'm familiar with the idea, yes." He replied, setting the tablet down. "What are we doing exactly?"

"The Strip, you know the reason Vegas exists? Going to one of the casinos, spend some caps, have a good time. You want to come?"

He mulled it over. "Alright, I'll see what's going on." He said with a shrug, putting his Pipboy in its belt pouch.

XXXXX

They had ridden a rattling monorail the short distance to the Strip, and when he'd seen their destination out the window Chase had leaned in and stared in awe. He had known, academically, that this city was an entertainment hub, but he'd never actually been there. All their training had taken them south into the desert rather than north, he'd never had any cause to come visit this place, but now that he saw it the city took his breath away.

Garish multicolored lights blazed in the early evening, flashing colors and strobing spotlights creating a kaleidoscope of dazzling color below them, he had never seen such a spectacularly wasteful display of wealth and status in his life.

"Woah, easy now." Tony said as Chase quick-marched down the stairs and out onto the Strip, "First you don't want to come now you're dragging us down there." He turned back to the others. "So, where are we going?"

"Gomorrah!" Five Card declared loudly as they started marching towards the casinos.

"The Tops is Fun." Royce said in his smooth, quiet voice.

"So long as it's not the Ultraluxe." Sawbones grimaced. "Place creeps me out, can't stand it."

Chase shrugged. "What's the difference between Gomorrah and The Tops?" He asked.

Royce gave him a surprised look, raising an eyebrow. "The Tops has nice music, stage shows, it's a pretty fun place."

"Gomorrah," Five Card interceded. "Has booze and hookers as far as the eye can see."

"Let's go there," Chase decided, "It's familiar at least." The brown haired sniper pouted all the way as Chase stared in amazement at the glory of the Strip, it was beyond anything he had imagined before, and as they approached Gomorrah he figured he had made the right choice, as he examined the selection of scantily clad men and women outside, enticing passersby with their charms.

Five Card threw the doors wide with the air of one breaching a door and marched up to the counter, talking to the receptionist on duty. As M-SOC operatives they were allowed to keep any weapons they had on them, which made Chase glad he'd tucked his .44 into his jacket, you never knew after all.

"This place is a lot nicer than it used to be." Tony said as he looked around.

"How so?" Chase asked curiously, trying to be talkative tonight.

"The people running it before used to be complete thugs, but Alaric took the place over during the dustup over Hoover, so now the staff is a lot nicer. Don't let them scare you, they play at being gangsters and thugs but it's just an act, playing up their theme. Used to be they'd gut you and dump you in the Mojave if you caused trouble."

Chase examined the suited guards standing at various points around the room, they seemed just slightly to artfully distributed to be random chance. "Good to know, thanks. So what do you do here?"

"Gamble, drink, hit the brothel, that's gotten nicer too. Used to be most of the ass here was on the scummier side, strung out on chems and threats, now they're clean and inviting and you don't feel like a complete sack of shit for using them anymore."

The mutant frowned, looking to the dancers, who were dressed even less than the ones outside. "They treated their workers like that?" He said in a disapproving tone.

Tony grimaced. "Yeah, I came here once when the Omertas still ran the place, got into it with one of the girls but she was so out of it on chems and acting it was just painful, it was like kicking a puppy. Guess they didn't think they could keep their workers if they could just let them leave."

Chase grimaced, shaking his head as the group dispersed, him and Tony walking to the bar. "That's just… stupid. And wrong, if they were treated right it works out better for everyone." He ordered some vodka, pleased at the price.

"You're talking like you're comparing it to something." Tony pointed out.

"Back where I came from we had a place like this, really small but same idea, gambling, booze, whores." Tony listened with evident interest, Chase hadn't talked about home before. "But everybody there was treated right, paid, protected, whether you were serving drinks or filling a bed in the brothel, Henry treated everybody alright."

Tony shrugged. "Well I guess a lot of people here look down on people in this line of work, is that different where you come from?" He asked, indicating a dancer shaking on a small stage for the nearby guests amusement.

Chase considered it. "Yeah, it was. People like that brought more traders to our town, made them want to pass through Clearwater rather than somewhere else, that brought more business to everyone. If they all up and left we'd all be harder off for it. And if Henry mistreated his workers people wouldn't stand for it, life's hard enough in Bullhead without a bully kicking other people around."

"So there's no stigma against the oldest profession where you come from, eh? Sounds enlightened for a place you describe as a complete shithole."

He shrugged. "We all had more important things to worry about than whether you kept your pants on at your job, I guess it seemed unimportant compared to mutant attacks, water purification and fresh food. And there was never enough people around to get upset at anyone because of the job they did, if it's not hurting you or the community it's not worth fighting over."

"Huh, guess there's more to you than I thought, people in the barracks make up all kinds of stories about you, you know."

Chase was surprised. "Oh?"

"That you were raised by wolves, that you drink blood, that you're some kind of mutant." Tony shrugged. "Never bought into it, usual barrack room bullshit.

"I am a mutant." He piped up, opening his jaws wide.

Tony looked surprised. "Wow, that's… huh. Did you just dislocate your jaw or something?"

Chase closed his mouth, confused. "What? No, I mean the extra teeth, I guess."

"Oh, didn't notice those, I was preoccupied with you opening your jaw wide enough to bite someone's face clean off."

Chase frowned, he wouldn't bite someone's face off, there wasn't any good meat there. He was about to say as much when Tony set his drink down. "Lovely talking, but duty calls." He said as he got up heading towards a lady in a red dress hovering near the craps table. Chase shook his head and went back to his drink.

XXXXX

The vodka was a bit of a surprise to him, it had a lot more kick than what he'd gotten used to back in Bullhead. He supposed it was just easier to make it up here so there wasn't any need to water it down, the booze he was used to had just enough alcohol in it to kill any bacteria in the drink and render it safe for consumption, not enough to act as an emergency anesthetic. He'd downed the shot he'd gotten and not ordered another, he tried to never allow himself to get drunk, it was a potentially dangerous situation he never wanted to put himself in. After that he just started wandering, looking down at the gambling floor that dominated the main hall here.

"Ya' look lost." Said one of the suited guards leaning casually against a pillar. "Help 'ya out kid?"

"Not really one for gambling, what else is there?"

The guard shrugged, pointing to the door on the far side. "Stage show's in there, if you're one to watch, there's the club if you can afford the cover charge. Or just look around the halls and the courtyard, find yourself a girl, or a guy, have some fun."

"Thanks." Chase said, heading towards the rear of the room. He never liked the idea of gambling, he lived his life carefully, never taking a risk if he didn't need to. Gambling was the exact definition of unnecessary risk. If he was giving away caps to have fun here he wanted to know exactly what the fixed rate was, and what he was getting in return.

The stage show turned out to be more interesting than he'd expected, rather than some kind of comedy act it was a complex fan dance with several scantily clad women waving big shiny fans. He watched for a bit, admiring their costumes. In Clearwater you either wore functional clothes or nothing, not impractical costumes made mainly out of reflective beads. It seemed slightly pointless for an entertainer like this to wear anything at all but he supposed he shouldn't judge other cultures for not meeting his expectations.

After that he wandered a bit, passing through another club that seemed to be based around the same idea except the customers were primarily women and the dancers almost all men. He'd had to tell a one slightly drunk woman that no, he wasn't for sale, and certainly not for that low a price, before he eventually left in annoyance. Eventually he headed out into the courtyard, seeing more hookers about and a couple rows of huts for a little privacy. He was about to start looking over the merchandise, feeling about ready to start the 'recreation' purpose of this whole trip, when he saw Royce sitting by himself on a stone bench.

"You alright?" He asked, walking over to the marksman. The sniper often sat by himself and didn't bother anyone, but that's not what you were supposed to do when you were in a place like this, even if you didn't like gambling there was plenty here to do.

"Just needed some fresh air." He replied.

Chase looked around, all the working girls and guys were giving him a ten food standoff radius as they walked by, evidently he'd made it clear at some point that he wasn't looking to pay for their services.

"Really? You look hurt." He said simply.

"Don't want to talk about it."

Chase shrugged, sitting down on the bench as he looked around, not making any move to leave. "You're not interested in anyone here?"

"Don't like buying what they're selling." He said glumly.

Chase shrugged. Their pay was more than adequate to afford it, maybe he had some other use for the caps. "Maybe get some drinks then?"

"I don't! Sorry, I'm just not feeling like partying right now." They sat in silence for a minute or two. "My girlfriend broke up with me, and I never liked this place anyway, that make sense?"

Chase nodded, his girl left and he couldn't pay for anything, no wonder he was glum. "Sorry to hear that, anything I can help with?"

"Damned if I can think of anything… but thanks I guess, if you have any sudden ideas let me know."

Chase nodded. "I will." He said with certainty, making Royce give him a slightly worried look. Chase gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile, sharp teeth gleaming in the light, before he stood and walked away, feeling rather proud of how he handled that. He'd learn the surface worlder's strange social dynamics yet!

Chase walked across the courtyard, looking about at the workers hanging about in the open, some presenting or catcalling to him as he passed, but he wasn't interested for himself. If he could find a nice hooker for Royce maybe it would help him enjoy himself a bit more. There were quite a few here, and the huts were a nice touch, back in Henry's there was just a cloth curtain separating the private nooks from the main room. He ignored the male ones because he assumed the sniper wanted a replacement for his girl, then again he might be trying to forget her so maybe a change of pace would help instead.

"Not finding what you're looking for, maybe you should try something a little more exotic." Said a rather raspy voice behind him.

"I'm looking for a friend to..." He turned, freezing in place when he saw the speaker. A ghost was standing there, hands on its hips, dressed entirely in black leather.

"Ah!" He shouted, instantly kicking into fight or flight mode as he backpedaled away from the creature, hand flying reflexively to his hip holster, which he wasn't wearing. He had just remembered his gun was in his jacket when he tripped backwards over a bench and slammed into the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs.

"Well, that's about the worst reaction I've ever seen, am I losing my touch?" The creature asked in a voice that just managed to be feminine despite coming through a throat that sounded like it had been flossed with barbed wire.

Sucking for breath and a little stunned, Chase just lay there as she 'tisk'd and walked off, Royce running over to stand worriedly over him. "Are you alright?" He asked, helping Chase back up.

"Fine." He choked out, coughing a bit before catching his breath again. "What, who?"

"Have you never seen a ghoul before?" The sniper asked in a comforting voice.

"Never, never one that wasn't trying to rip my head off."

The man nodded understandingly. "Ah, you've only seen ferals then, they're not all like that, most of the ones you see around here are quite sane, but the ones you run into stalking the countryside have probably devolved into insanity, they're just animals on two legs. But most of them are just people with a nasty medical condition."

He looked back over at the retreating back of the ghoul stripper, who didn't seem perturbed by having what looked like third degree burns over her entire body. "That's… new." He said lamely.

"They serve all tastes here." Royce said simply, patting his back. "Hear there's talk of hiring super mutants now, guess some people find ten foot tall slabs of muscle attractive, wonder why."

Chase gave him a worried look, noting the sarcasm in his voice. "Fascinating." He said, shaking himself a little, trying to regain his composure. "Well, um, thanks for that. I'll just… go." He said before taking off at a brisk pace. He wasn't one to be embarrassed about much of anything, but his ignorance and clumsily making a fool of himself made him uncomfortable in a way he wasn't often used to. He went back inside, sitting down at the bar in the stage room, resolving to drink and stare at scantily clad dancers until his embarrassment went away. He had just ordered when a few caps jingled onto the bar top.

"His is on me, and get me one too." Said a feminine voice, thankfully human and whole sounding.

He turned to see his sudden benefactor, a young lady about his age, with short red hair and green eyes, her skin a healthy wasteland tan, darker than his which was still a little pale despite all the outdoor training. She wore more rugged clothes than most of the female guests here, jeans and a leather jacket.

"Why?" He asked simply as she sat down next to him.

"Saw you take a tumble in the courtyard, thought you could use a drink." She said with a little laughter in her voice. "Name's Diana."

"Chase." He replied evenly, taking his drink. "I take it you're a guest? Not showing enough skin to be working here."

She raised a brow. "A bit blunt, aren't we?" She swirled her drink. "I suppose I'm here for the same reason you are, a little relaxation in between jobs. I know the look you've got and I saw your reflexes. Mercenary? Bounty hunter?"

"Army, you?"

"Oh, a soldier boy eh?" She asked, grinning at him as he watched the dancers doing their next act. "Merc myself, come up from Cali on business. Imagine it's tough doing what you do, being stuck out in some godforsaken outpost or something, or being packed in with a bunch of lonely guys in a barrack someplace like sardines."

"Barracks aren't bad." He said with a shrug. "McCarran's a pretty nice place, don't see why people complain."

She chuckled again. "Well, lots of guys away from home for the first real time, no privacy, most of them probably missing their girls, I'm guessing that's why you're here. Unless you're eyeing up the guys in which case communal showers with a bunch of fit lads is probably a bonus."

"Girls are fine." He replied simply, growing increasingly confused at her approach. People don't just walk up to people and start talking at them do they? This isn't normal, is it? Maybe he didn't understand this place as much as he thought.

"Goodie for you then, I suppose. I guess it's obvious by the way you've been sitting here watching the stage nursing that… drink."

Does she never stop talking?

"So done anything interesting in the glorious army of New Vegas? I've got a few tales to tell from my work. You don't seem interested in this place's other charms so wanna talk shop a bit?"

His frown deepened as, unprompted, she started talking about some bounty head she'd tracked down, frequently taking breaks to ask more personal questions, until he finally couldn't take it anymore, this was too bizarre.

"Do you want sex?" He asked simply, making her freeze mid description.

"Huh?" She asked dumbly.

"You bought me a drink and have been talking to me for almost fifteen minutes, do you want sex or not?" He asked with slight desperation, hoping to latch onto something, anything, that he knew how to actually handle.

"Well… sure, I suppose. I mean you're not exactly ugly, it's just"

"Good, let's go." He said, standing and walking back towards the back doors.

"Hey!" She protested, following after him quickly. "You know it's a little rude to just ask a lady that, you know." Rude? She'd talked his ear off for a quarter of an hour before he made her get to the point, she had no right to talk about being rude, she'd probably have gone on talking for another hour if he hadn't stopped her.

"Room, or hut?" He asked as they entered the courtyard, a surprised Royce stepping aside after he almost ran into them as they came out of the doors.

Diana caught up with him, looking around. "Well the rooms are more private but they charge rent for those, so"

"Hut then." He decided, marching over to the nearest one and pulling the flap aside. He was halfway inside when he realized it was already in use, the couple in the bed looking awkwardly at him, frozen in the midst of their affair.

"You." He pointed to the man. "Move your hand up. More. Now grab, there." He instructed before Diana grabbed his coat and pulled him back out, blushing almost as red as her hair.

"You can't just do that!" she protested angrily.

"I was trying to be helpful, he was doing it wrong, his hands weren't in the right place for"

"Not the point! People expect at least some privacy when they're doing… that. Did you grow up under a rock or something?"

"Yes." He answered simply, stumping her for a moment.

"You had better be good, like really good." She said after a moment, before going to knock on an unoccupied hut and go inside.

"I am." He promised her with absolute certainty, following her in and taking his jacket off.

"I'll be the judge of that, then." She sighed, seeming to think about something before visibly making an effort to regain her composure as he continued stacking his clothes neatly on a bench. "Look I'm sorry I snapped and… well close the flap at least!" She shouted angrily.

XXXXX

Sometime later, Chase was climbing out of bed, stretching fitfully before walking to the bench, glancing back at Diana where she lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, wide eyed.

"Good enough?" He asked as he reached for his clothes.

"Oh god… I didn't know people could do that." She said in a mildly shocked voice. "Are you triple jointed or something?"

"Not to my knowledge." He said truthfully, though with the revelation of his mutation he wasn't sure that wasn't true.

"Where did you learn that, that one thing with the…" She tried to describe with hand gestures.

"Practice." He said simply as he pulled on his pants.

"Well you could write a book, it'd be a best seller." She said as she stretched a bit, Chase pulling his shirt on and buckling his belt.

"I'm glad you liked it." Chase said in his normal, even tones, making sure he hadn't dropped anything on the floor.

"I think I'm in love." Diana said, still seeming daze and confused as Chase tied his bootlaces. She shifted a bit, wincing. "What did they feed you back where you came from?"

He paused, trying to think of the best answer. "Lots of meat." He decided on eventually.

"Hmm, well I might have to visit sometime. Now lover boy, why don't you tell me some stories of your dashing adventures in…" She sat up, looking around but Chase was already gone, the cloth door flapping slightly in the breeze.

Chase had a relaxed, satisfied expression as he walked back towards the doors, hands in his jacket pockets. He walked up to Royce, who was still waiting with a funny expression on his face.

"Hey." Chase said calmly.

"Hey… So, have fun?" He asked, seeming almost nervous.

"I suppose, it was nice. What's… up?" He asked, before the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He looked around, noticing that a good number of people in the courtyard were looking over at him. "Is something wrong?"

Royce tapped his fingers in an agitated way, arms crossed. "Well it's just everyone out here heard you two."

Chase shrugged. "So?" He asked, not seeing the point.

"Normally people try to be quiet and not… broadcast, to use exactly the right word."

Chase grimaced, annoyed. "Back in Bullhead nobody gave a damn, grow up in close packed tunnels I guess you don't care much about what you see or overhear. Are they mad?" He asked, cocking his head towards the others.

"I think… impressed, maybe? Jealous? Uncomfortable? I'm the last one especially." The sniper pointed out. "Where is she, by the way."

Chase shrugged. "Still in bed I suppose."

"You just walked out on her!" Royce sounded outraged.

He frowned, confused again. "We were done, I don't think she wanted to go again. She can lay around if she wants but I don't have a reason to stay. What?" Royce's frown shifted as he looked past Chase to something behind him. He turned, seeing Diana walking briskly over towards him, hair somewhat messed but once again dressed. Maybe he had been wrong?

"Hey, want to go againnngghhg!" His words turning into a grunt of pain as she marched right up and buried her fist in his gut, driving the air from his lungs and making him crumple. With a little 'Hmph!' of outrage she marched off, leaving him on his knees to try and catch his breath.

"What, the, hell?" He gasped. "She was happy, a minute ago."

Royce sighed, helping him to his feet as a few quiet giggles could be heard around the courtyard. "Come on buddy, you're done for the day. Looks like you've still got a lot to learn."

At this point, Chase wasn't sure he wanted to.

===Author's Note===

A little drama, a little humor, a little character stuff, hopefully this chapter isn't too schizophrenic.

Hoping to hear your reviews, I really look forward to seeing what my readers think when I put up a new chapter, enjoy.


	10. Blaze a Trail

It was a few days after the trip to the casino that Chase and the rest of his unit got their first real orders, the group called into Commander Boone's office. The man was sitting behind his desk, overlooking a map laid out before him, Chase's heart skipped a beat when he saw Bullhead circled in red along a road, the same he'd traveled to get here.

"Training is over, and now we need you to move out." Boone began without preamble, pointing to the map. "It is vital that a supply line be established between New Vegas and this location." He pointed to a red 'X' mark southeast of Bullhead, off the main paths. "As the only other roadways would lead through Legion or NCR territory, we have to move through Bullhead itself. Your mission will be to recon a path to this location, identifying and if possible neutralizing any threats to convoys moving along this route. Once you reach your end destination you are to sit tight and wait for extraction via Vertibird, you won't have to walk all the way back. Chase, you're a Bullhead native so I am placing you in operational command on this mission, you know the dangers better than anyone."

Chase shifted uncomfortably, he wasn't good at taking orders, could he be any better at giving them?

"Sir, what exactly is at this location?" Tony asked curiously.

"Classified beyond top secret, you'll find out when you get there. Let's just say it's a cache of weapons and technology we need. The locals there are already on our side but we need a clear lane of supply to get the materials through. Chase, what do you believe the major obstacles will be to this?"

He shifted again. "Sir, the streets in Bullhead are blocked with derelict cars in many places, you'd probably need a work crew to clear the roads enough for vehicles to pass through."

"And the locals, will they be a hindrance?"

"The ghosts, uh, ghouls will be, yes. But the people living underground don't venture topside except for a few scavengers or scouts, they wouldn't be a problem. In fact they'd probably welcome any traffic through the city if you stopped to support their economy. But they have no knowledge of the outside world, as far as they know nothing exists beyond that city."

Boone nodded. "I see, and what about this Shroud? It seems too persistent to be natural."

Chase shrugged. "Been there since long before I was born, since the war as far as anyone knows. If you're suited up in protective clothing and have breathing filters it's not much of an issue."

"If you can find the source we might be able to do something about it, consider that a secondary objective. The local environment seems to hamper radio communication so you'll be out of contact until you clear that area of affect, but I'm sure you can handle being on your own, that's what your unit is for. Before you go, it is very, very important that you maintain total secrecy on this matter. No one is to know what you are doing, what your destination is, or why you are on this mission. Is that understood?"

They all nodded and affirmed their vows of secrecy. "Good, gather your gear and hit the road as soon as you can, the sooner this is done the better."

In a few hours they had triple checked their gear, grabbed everything they would need for the mission under Chase's advice, and were heading out down route 95 towards Bullhead, retracing he steps Chase had walked but a few weeks ago to come to his new life, he'd never thought he would be heading back so soon.

XXXXX

"Are you okay?" Royce asked as they walked, it had been a day or two since leaving the official 'safe' area of the Mojave. Chase turned to look at him, the sniper was wearing the same pre-war riot armor as the rest of them, partly concealed under a sturdy jacket and jeans, a flat topped, wide brimmed hat keeping the sun out of his eyes.

"I'm fine, why do you ask?" He said coolly.

"You're going home and you've barely talked at all the whole trip, it's been a couple days so I just wondered if there was something eating at you?"

He thought about it a moment, shrugging. "Never expected to be going back really, least of all so soon."

"You don't miss where you grew up at all? I know you said it was bad but still."

Chase was intently aware of the others listening in as they traveled, not speaking yet but they wanted to hear. He knew there were rumors and curiosity about him, he didn't really care but he wasn't used to getting attention like this, it vaguely irritated him.

"No, not really, life's better here." He said simply.

"You don't miss anyone there though, no friends or family?" Royce ventured carefully.

He shook his head, "Not really. No family, said my goodbyes to the people I liked who were still around."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Royce said softly. Chase gave him a look, examining his expression, he seemed genuinely sorry, like he'd done wrong.

"Why should you be?" He asked, confused and concerned.

"I'm sorry about your family, I mean." Still no response. "I'm just trying to be sympathetic, I don't want to pry but if you want to talk about it…" He trailed off awkwardly.

Chase shrugged. "Nothing to talk about, never knew them." He didn't elaborate any further, but twenty minutes of walking and the silent insistence of the others who seemed to be waiting for more eventually irked him like a stone in his boot. "You want me to keep talking?"

"I didn't say anything." Royce said defensively.

"You were saying nothing very loudly." He pointed out, making the sniper look guilty.

He turned to look at the others following, who were listening in. "You want to hear?" He asked in a slightly short tone.

"It's not good to keep things bottled up man." Five Card said with a shrug. "Nobody else around, we won't tell nobody, you wanna talk, talk."

Chase frowned, he wasn't used to just talking about things, personal things, things that shouldn't matter to anybody and least of all himself. He didn't care about his family, so why did they? They'd never meet them, it would never matter, why did they care? But they seemed to expect it, he could push them away and stay silent but he knew that would make them resent him, which could be bad given their future together. But if it didn't matter to him, then it shouldn't do any harm talking about it, right?

"Well if you must know." He began, thinking back. "I never knew my family. The man who raised me said I was the result of a one night stand and my mother couldn't care for me, so when I was an infant she gave me away to someone who could. I never knew either of their names or what they did with their lives, and I never cared to look for them. I grew up in a mechanic's shop learning how to fix broken machines and make simple parts with grinders and stamping presses, that's it. I have no family and never missed not having one, does that explain it well enough?"

The others seemed surprised, had he done something wrong?

"Is that common?" Tony asked. "Giving children away, I mean."

Chase shrugged. "Pregnancy is something most try to avoid, nobody wants a kid until they're completely sure they're able to support one. Some towns have something set up to raise unwanted kids communally but that's not universal."

Sawbones piped up. "I imagine the health risks are a big part too, from what you've told me there's not sufficient medical care down there. Death in childbirth would likely be too common, not to mention the increased food requirements and decreased ability to work and survive while pregnant. Not exactly positive qualities in a place like you describe."

Chase nodded. "Exactly, it's something nobody wants to just happen. But it still does, not a lot of high class entertainment venues down in the Metro tunnels so people have to make their own fun. That's probably how I came to be. Don't much care the circumstances, I'm here now." He shrugged.

"So you grew up in a machine shop?" Royce prompted. "Sounds interesting."

Chase wasn't sure if he was being truthful or just trying to tease out more info, but he felt talkative right now. "Yes, it was good. He taught me, gave me food and a place to sleep, it was better than what I could have hoped for any other way."

"He didn't pay you?" The sniper asked.

"No… I got free room and board, why?"

Five Card grunted. "Sounds like you were a slave, almost. Could you leave if you wanted to?"

Chase shrugged. "Nowhere else to go, I was a little kid with nobody in the world. Call it what you like, I got enough food to grow up healthy, a safe place to sleep, learned a trade. Call it slavery if that satisfies you but it was a lucky break for me, probably saved my life."

They asked a few more questions but he didn't feel like talking anymore. He felt vaguely offended at their implication, as if they insulted the memory of the man who'd raised him, and he didn't look the pitying looks in their eyes, so he shook himself and pulled his coat tighter like it would ward off their stares before marching on at a pace brisk enough to discourage further conversation.

XXXXX

They stayed over at Palm Gardens again, the last stop of relative safety before heading down into Bullhead. Royce was grumbling the next day about not sleeping well, something about 'falling dust' and 'creaking beds', but Chase didn't think there was anything wrong with the beds. His certainly seemed sturdy enough. Chase was feeling a lot more refreshed than him and he had probably gotten less sleep, what with Lila evidently being very excited to see him again.

"Everyone's checked their suit seals?" He asked, making sure as he saw the first wisps of the Shroud in the distance. "It's not too deadly, but skin exposure will cause chemical burns and if you breathe it you'll get lung damage. Best to avoid any contact if you can." Everyone double checked their armor's seals and donned their helmets and filter masks, checking each other's neck seams to ensure they were locked down properly.

"Alright, everyone keep close, visibility is going to be all but nil once we get into the Shroud and radio range is severely limited, do not get out of eyesight with each other, if you wander off you'll probably never find your way back together again." He warned, trying to impress upon them the danger this place held. "Everything here is dangerous, this is not a human place, not a living place. This city resents trespassers and make no mistake, it actively wants you all dead. Do not give it the chance to make that happen." With that final word of caution, they descended down towards Bullhead as the Shroud's wispy tendrils reached out to claim him once again.

The forlorn streets, the silent buildings, gaping maws of broken glass, it was all too familiar to him. "Use your thermal scanners, watch for body heat. This city is full of ghouls on the hunt, if we make too much noise they'll start to converge on us so take it slow, I'd rather not wake the city." There were some nervous nods, they seemed to really be understanding now. Whatever they had survived before, this place was alien to them, beyond their experience, nothing like the Mojave and its dangers.

"Everything is so still." Royce said quietly, his sniper rifle out, an old bolt action weapon called an L96A1 with a sound suppressor on the barrel. "No wind, nothing."

Chase nodded. "We're down in a bowl, and the buildings stop the wind, if you hear something move it's something alive more likely than not."

They had their plan set up before they had gone in, which streets they would scout out. They needed a large street, something that could handle a lot of truck traffic easily enough, so they had to head through the central areas of the city, the outlying areas were all smaller roads covered in the rubble of houses and had degraded with time, he knew that much from his time here before. He periodically checked his Pipboy, having integrated his old maps and notes with pre-war map data they had in Vegas so he had at least a good idea of where he was at any time.

"Com's dead." Tony remarked after trying his radio. "Been fading for hours, nothing but static now. The buildings, the Shroud, it's all too much interference."

"Nothing gets through, I only heard radio from New Vegas when I climbed to the top of one of the towers, and that's not smart. Stairs give out, and the ghouls like living in them, I don't advise it."

"So where are we going to make camp?" Five Card asked, sweeping the street with his light machinegun.

"I know where some stations are, we've got more than enough money to pay for room and board, nobody will question a group like us, scavengers come down all the time."

They progressed slowly, checking out the route Chase thought was the most likely to get them through. Even that failed eventually though, rubble blocking the path or the road torn up by an exploding gas main or sunken into a pit or collapsed underground tunnel. Each blockage was marked out on his map as they found it, they would need to find a more or less complete accounting of potential routes before he could call this job done. A primary route and at least one backup option should things go wrong, and here they often did.

"These cars will have to be dragged away." Sawbones noted as he looked at the rusted over hulks, tires long gone hard and flat and systems degraded completely. "I wouldn't be surprised if a decent chunk of the radiation here is coming from all these neglected motors."

"Probably." He said with a shrug. "Sometimes they get scavenged, put back together. A good amount of electrical generation is handled by the nuclear engines they used to put in these cars, not much else place to get it."

The field medic tapped his fingers on the Thompson SMG he carried with him in addition to all of the medical equipment. "This place doesn't have the resources to support a population, how have your people survived here? Beyond scavenging, what do you do for food, water?"

"We have purifiers and filters, the river is contaminated by the Shroud but not that badly. There's always just enough, as for food." He trailed off, trying to think of how best to describe this. "We cultivate mushrooms a lot, throw the dead ghosts we can drag back into the pits to decay and feed the plants, hunt some creatures up here in the city, get fish in the river but that's difficult so we don't get much there."

"That doesn't sound like enough to feed an entire city." Sawbones pointed out, making Chase drum his fingers in agitation on his rifle. "Well… things are a bit different here. You have to keep in mind, food is very hard to come by in this place, it's not like we can farm much underground, and even with the other methods it's still difficult to"

"You're cannibals, aren't you?" The doctor said, the party stopping in surprise, everyone looking at Chase.

"Well… yes." He admitted uncomfortably. "When it's a choice between that or starvation." He could see the horrified body language of his squad mates, the evident worry, stepping back a bit.

"So, you've…" Royce began uncertainly.

"Eaten people? Yes, if I hadn't I would have starved a long time ago. Listen, I know the stories you've all heard, I'm not like that, nobody here is. We don't go around murdering people because we're hungry, but we can't afford to let all that meat just rot, we'd die out. We do what we have to in order to survive, don't look down on us because you grew up being taught it's wrong. Your world does a lot of things I don't agree with."

"I thought as much." Sawbones said, not seeming too upset. "It was the only explanation I could think of based on what you told us earlier. Does anyone here get sick eating human flesh?"

"Um, no, not that I've heard of." He said, surprised at the question.

"Interesting, probably another facet of your mutation, interesting adaptation. So you've never attacked anyone in order to feed?"

He shook his head vehemently. "No! I certainly have not, we're not like that here. Life's hard but it's a lot harder when people go around causing trouble for everyone else. We're different from you, that doesn't make us monsters."

Tony seemed thoughtful for a long moment. "I know what it's like to be seen as something wrong, I won't hold anything against you. You're a bit odd man, but you're not a bad guy, never were before, aren't now."

Royce had been quiet but now he nodded. "If he can learn not to panic around ghouls, we can learn not to panic around these people, so where do we go from here?"

Chase nodded, feeling better for not getting the team-breaking reaction he'd been expecting. "That way." He pointed down a street. "There's a major intersection there and a Metro station not far beyond that. It's starting to get late, and you don't want to start getting drowsy up here, so we'll stick close to the entrance for the rest of the day and then head down."

"Guess this explains why he likes pork sandwiches." Five Card muttered as he covered their backs with his machinegun.

XXXXX

They continued their slow and steady exploration for a few more hours, nothing more interesting than Royce dropping a few wandering ghosts with his rifle. It was almost too easy, the thermal scope cutting through the ever present Shroud and the muffled report barely traveling. Point and click, remove the obstruction, they were making good time. Eventually though it was time to find someplace safe, he'd explained that there just weren't any safe havens to make camp up here unless you were supremely lucky. Best to head down into the Metro, they'd been given funds to use at their discretion so paying for room and board wouldn't be an issue.

"Okay, we're a surface scavenger crew, remember that. Try not to stare too much at anything you think is unusual, let me do the talking, we're not dressed that unusually for people in this line of work and wanderers from other settlements making surface forays aren't that unusual a sight." It was true, they weren't that unusual for this job. Their armor was mostly hidden by their clothes, none of which were the same. It was intentional, M-SOC had no uniform unlike the regular army, it made them difficult to identify. "Oh, and don't eat any white meat unless you want to try long pork, your call." He said before leading them down.

He'd given their false story to the watchman at the airlock door, who had unsealed the gate and let them inside. He hadn't been to this station before, but he'd heard it was a decent enough place for travelers to make a stopover. He pulled his breathing mask off and stowed his helmet, running gloved fingers through his air and rubbing his face, glad to be out of the confines of the filter helmet. "Welcome to the other half of Bullhead." He said as they walked in, his companions looking around curioiusly.

Lighting was a little on the dim side, but well enough to see. He wondered about how much his companions were squinting though, this place was darker than they were used to, maybe better dark vision was another aspect of his mutation? This station seemed to be one of the larger ones, about as bustling as Clearwater was, and from an old Metro map on the wall he saw it was another intersection between Metro lines, making it a crossroads that would see a lot more traffic than other stations. There was a main bazaar area with various shops, a tavern set up near the entry walkway and sprawling down onto the track level below. All in all everything you might expect to find in the center of a little town.

"If you have any questions, ask me quietly. Don't worry too much though, the idea of an 'out of towner' is completely foreign here, we never get visitors from the outside world." Chase said in a quiet voice.

"I feel a little overdressed." Five Card muttered as he looked around. "Is that normal?"

He looked about, taking a moment to realize what he meant. Most of the people here were dressed a little less completely than people he saw in the Mojave. Most went topless, the most common clothes were old tattered pants and jeans that were half shredded away, skirts or kilts of crudely stitched together rags or even underwear. Some wore cargo shorts made of leather that looked much more new, other than that it was all pre-war rags and not much of them.

"Everything down here is concrete and steel, concrete and dirt." Chase explained as they walked over to a balcony, looking down on the town below that bustled over onto the tracks and stretched off into both tunnels in either direction. "Nothing to make cloth out of down here so most people have to make do with two hundred year old rags. There's old clothes and cloth on the surface, but with how dangerous it can be up there we don't get much of that. So people use whatever they've got. And with how rare 'clean' water is you have to stretch it out because you only can clean so often. It took me a while to figure out you were supposed to wear multiple layers, for instance."

"I… suppose it makes sense." Royce said with a shrug. "Still, think people would like to cover up more."

"Hey, it's not all that bad." Five Card said with a chuckle as a topless woman walked by, earning him an elbow from Royce.

"Clothing styles in the Mojave are the exception, rather than the norm." Tony pointed out. "Tribal societies often don't wear any more than this, they just make new clothes rather than scavenging old rags, not nearly as many people in the wider world agree on what should and shouldn't be covered, or how scandalous it is to show anything."

Chase nodded. "I suppose, and the temperature down here is comfortably neutral, no rain or sand or wind, no bugs to keep off. You could probably get away with just wearing sandals down here but there are still some things we like to keep covered, for safety if nothing else."

"So you exclusively wear old pre-war rags?" Royce wondered aloud.

"Not entirely, we have some leather production but that's pretty limited, not a lot of people who know how to do that, and the source is very limited."

"Why's that?" the sniper asked.

"Where do you think the leather comes from? You see any brahman pens down here?" Sawbones observed, making the sniper blanch.

Chase patted him on the back. "This is what I feel like in your world half the time, you're strange and weird and get upset over the most unusual of things. Come on, I'm hungry and the signs say there's a tavern down that tunnel." He said, leading the group off down the frozen escalator, Royce turning back to grab Five Card who was still staring at the ladies.

XXXXX

The tavern was refreshingly familiar. While not quite as large or nice as Henry's Bar, it had everything you'd expect. Speakers playing jazz music on an infinite loop, a bar and various mismatched tables and chairs set around for diners, a ratty old curtain on the far side of the bar where entirely different hungers and thirsts were sated. It was run down, made of tattered scraps bolted and lashed together, dirty and brutally honest about what it was.

"You seem… well not happy, but something like that." Royce observed as they sat around a round plastic table, breaking Chase out of his reverie.

"This place takes me back is all." He commented before he drank some of his beer, the familiar incredibly light brew that was essentially flavored water with just enough alcohol to kill the bacteria and make it safer to drink. "I spent years in a bar just like this, it's familiar."

"I suppose that's comforting." Sawbones commented. "I never really imagined how strange everything else must seem to you. This place isn't like anything I've seen before."

Chase swilled his beer around, making it slosh about in the mug. "This place is honest, simple, it doesn't try to hide what it is. It's all on display, right out in the open. I still have trouble getting used to how everything in your world has to hide its nature. Even Gomorrah has to put up a certain public front and hide away its entertainments behind walls and doors. Even when everyone knows what's there they feel the need to conceal and misdirect. I suppose people in your world grow up expecting a certain level of privacy that just doesn't exist here, you act like the things you want to do are shameful even if nobody is hurt and hold each other to the strangest standards."

"Well there are just some things we don't like other people seeing. It's not wrong to have habits or likes that you don't want other people to find out about, but some things can be embarrassing." Royce said, staring straight into his beer, possibly so he wouldn't look at the room full of people with far less conservative dress sense. "There are some things you just want to keep secret, even if they're harmless. People like having a certain degree of privacy."

Chase shook his head. "Not here. If you want privacy you have to go out into the tunnels and that's rarely safe or convenient. Inside the stations there's not enough room for privacy. A lot of people sleep on cushions or mattresses out in the open, or behind one wall of sheet metal or boards. I was lucky enough to have my own room but that was just a utility closet and the door led right out into the middle of town. Whatever you do, wherever you are, someone is going to see you, or hear you. We don't grow up with privacy, it's not something we expect because we never have it. Someone will see, someone will find out, so there's no point in hiding anything."

"Interesting way of enforcing honesty." Tony said, thoughtfully tapping his glass as he considered the implications. "Do people keep their noses clean because they know they'll get caught, or do you have fewer scruples about what you get upset over?"

Chase thought about that for a bit, it wasn't something he considered before. "I suppose a bit of both really. We don't often try to take advantage of each other or hurt each other for benefit, because it's impossible to keep that quiet. People here look out for each other and remove troublemakers because if someone is hurting people for greedy purposes they might hurt you some other time, enlightened self-interest I suppose. But we also don't get upset about as many things as you people do. Personal habits, lovers, relationships, recreation, if it's not a threat to your health or safety it's not worth fighting about. Life is hard enough down here without people picking fights over things like that. Some things your people are willing to fight over seem so petty to me." He said with a sigh as their food arrived.

As they had discretionary funding for this mission, he'd splurged a bit, getting himself a steak while the others ordered mushrooms or fish or something else equally innofensive to their surface-worlder sensibilities.

"Sounds a little spineless." Five Card grunted. "There are some things worth having a brawl over."

Chase shrugged. "That's your opinion. Down here a sprain, or a fractured bone, or an infected cut can be a serious threat to life and security. Unless it's a matter of life or death it's not worth fighting over usually. There are some exceptions of course, rape, extortion, theft, but those are things that if left unchecked could victimize you someday. If it's not harming you or taking from you, then it's not worth fighting over, not worth risking yourself over to champion some personal preference or imagined thing."

He shook his head, not really sure how to deal with some of these people.

"Why do people stay in a place like this." Sawbones muttered as they ate. "Why not leave? They could have better lives almost anywhere else."

Chase shrugged again. "Nobody who sets out to leave ever comes back. Used to think it was because there was just nothing out there and they died, now I know it's because the outside world is a better place. But look around, people here wear what? Loincloths, skirts, underwear, sandals. Think they'd last half an hour on the surface, with the shroud burning exposed flesh, turning your lungs to concrete as the radiation poisons you? My clothes are a makeshift hazard suit, can you imagine how many years of saving up, working long hours and skimping on luxuries it took for me to buy my gear? There's just not enough hazard gear to go around, we can't make it. Unless the Shroud goes away nobody is going anywhere."

The doctor shook his head again, pushing mushrooms around his plate and cursing under his breath. "Intolerable, that people live like this. It's intolerable."

"It's living." Chase shrugged. "That's always been enough."

===Author's Note===

Alternate title for this chapter 'I'm getting tired of coming up with gambling puns'.

Please review, eager to hear your feedback, hope you're enjoying the story thus far.


	11. House of Cards

Alaric looked up over the report he was reading to Cass, who had just handed it to him a minute ago. "You're serious? They're serious?" He asked dubiously.

She made a face that seemed to say 'what'cha gonna do?' and nodded. "Seem to be. The NCR is sending a diplomatic mission here. I barely had time to say howdy to the local potentate before I was told to get my caravan back on the road and head home, that they were sending someone here already and I wasn't wanted thank you very much."

"Any idea who they're sending?" He asked, running a hand over his black hair. This was something he didn't need right now. With the Brotherhood situation devolving by the day, the road to Big Mountain still blocked and the army still coming together the last thing he needed was a bunch of NCR diplomats and, likely, spies poking around his territory.

Cass shook her head again. "No clue, just that they're sending somebody up to meet with you and" she adopted the tone of someone reading a quote, "evaluate the local situation."

"In other words, see if we're open to joining willingly, or weak enough to be conquered if we're not willing." He surmised with a heavy sigh, getting himself more coffee. "How long do we have."

"Three days, they're sending their ambassador in via Vertibird."

"Of course they are." He said, steepling his fingers and considering. The Vertibird was obviously a showy move, only big nations like the NCR had things like that, functioning air travel was a clear sign of how powerful and resourceful the NCR was, even if they were just fixing and maintaining something that another group had built. But he could turn this to his advantage…

"Then of course we will welcome them with all due ceremony." He said with a chuckle. "Yes Man, patch me through to Nellis, we have a few preparations to make."

XXXXX

Ambassador Max McKinley was going over his notes again, trying to ignore the dull droning whine of the Vertibird's motors as they flew on towards their destination. He was an older man who's hair was starting to thin in places, but he kept the greying at bay with brown dye to keep it close to the color it was when he was younger. A Boneyard native by birth and upbringing he'd been in the NCR diplomatic core for many a year, brokered relations and annexations with many settlements, negotiated with wandering tribes and native dwellers across the NCR's borders. To put it simply his accomplishments were not unimpressive or without renown, and he knew that this was going to be the most important, and possibly riskiest, mission of his life.

President Kimball had given his instructions directly, made sure to impress upon them how serious a matter this was. The NCR needed Hoover Dam, otherwise they could begin to face serious shortfalls. As the Republic grew, so did its needs, if they were to continue spreading civilization across the wasteland then they would need the resources to fuel that expansion. Electrical power, always something that they had been concerned with, was vital. And that dam could supply their needs beyond any shadow of a doubt, with that in hand they would never have to worry about power, not for at least fifty years. Now the only thing standing between the NCR and a cultural renaissance for the world was a would be warlord squatting in the ruins of New Vegas.

The NCR may have been distracted before, dealing with other problems on other fronts, now the Mojave had their full and undivided attention. They had suffered setbacks before of course, but a defeat like this wasn't something that you just shrugged off and walked away from. No, this was something that you threw your back into and redoubled your efforts to win back, it was this important. The NCR needed Hoover if they were to continue their campaign, but more importantly they needed to look good before their people. Already there was talk about how 'Kimballs Folly' in the Mojave was to blame for all the blood shed and nothing to show for it. The administration needed a win, and if they couldn't get one by the sword they sent the pen, they sent him.

He sighed, clipping his briefcase closed again, shifting in the cramped cabin. Between himself, the pilots, one aide and a few Rangers to act as escorts and guards, there was very little room left in the transport. While fast and well protected, Vertibirds were not the most comfortable. "How long do we have?" He asked the pilot

"Half an hour sir, we're on course for the… what in the?" He leaned in, checking something.

"What is it?" McKinley asked, craning his neck to see into the pilot's compartment.

"That can't possibly… we've got a bogey!" He said, the shock evident in his voice. There was something else in the sky with them, something they didn't put there, this was unprecedented.

"Make that two unknowns closing from 11 o'clock." The pilot reported, "Closing fast, I don't think we can… yes?" He began talking into his radio, evidently hearing someone on his headset. "Yes. We have an NCR ambassador aboard. Yes. Our destination is New Vegas. Divert? I can't… yes. … Yes. Very well." The pilot sighed, shaking his head a bit.

"What's going on?" McKinley demanded, jumping in his seat slightly as he heard the rush of two somethings go screaming by their aircraft.

"Planes sir. The pilot claims to be from the Mojave Air Force, he says they were sent to escort us to Nellis, they will not allow us to land at Vegas itself."

He nodded after a moment, taking a few seconds to process all the implications of this feat, before he looked out his window to see one of the twoship of fighters pull up alongside their Vertibird. It was an old US Air Force fighter, refurbished with new unit markings, most prominently a black 'ace of spades' painted on the tail fin. This mission had just got a lot more complicated.

XXXXX

The Vertibird touched down shortly thereafter at Nellis, hovering to a landing on a pad indicated by lit flares while the jets circled high above. McKinley had heard about this place from his predecessor, Ambassador Crocker. Nellis had always been a tough nut to crack, they knew it was strategically important and a major roadblock to their annexation of the region, the weapons stockpiled there could have been a major turning point in the conflict. He corrected himself, they had been a major turning point, the 'Boomer's as they called themselves had been a major element in this Alaric's scheme to betray the NCR and install himself in power. Crocker had been right about the Boomers, he'd just chosen the wrong tool, but then a lot of people in the NCR had trusted this man.

The ramp descended and his bodyguards moved quickly to file out, forming a not quite ceremonial cordon at the bottom of the ramp, their black armor and long duster coats an imposing presence in front of anyone. Of course the flanks of robots waiting for them on the tarmac were not perturbed in the slightest. McKinley eyed them as he descended the ramp, the upgraded Securitrons he'd read about in his dossier. Tough, aggressive, merciless, these were the mechanical soldiers who had driven them out.

"Howdy, and welcome to Nellis." Said the nearest one, making McKinley look in surprise. "Hope that you weren't too shook up about the landing site, the boss is a might touchy about the dam these days." This robot lacked the grim soldier face the others all shared, instead sporting a flickering cowboy on its screen 'face'.

"Thank you, it was no trouble." McKinley said, recovering quickly. Whatever the situation, it never hurt to be polite, that was the first rule he always reminded himself of. "Ambassador McKinley of the New California Republic." He introduced himself. "And you are?"

"Name's Victor." The robot said, making a 'nodding' gesture that rocked its entire boxy torso. "Boss appointed me to be your guide to New Vegas, roll out the welcome wagon as it were. If y'all have any questions to ask I'll do my best to oblige you."

"Very thoughtful of him." McKinley said, wondering about the robot. Were they all capable of being this personable, or was this a unique AI program with more autonomy than the others? In his experience robots were very limited conversationalists and generally very rigid in their ability to respond to anything, but this machine seemed far more warm and flexible than he had been expecting.

He walked down the aisle of robots, his bodyguards falling in behind him, aide shrinking down between the ranks of Rangers for protection as they proceeded. As shows of force went this was a very blatant one, proudly displaying the two great pillars of his power over the region. With the Boomers in the sky and the robots on the ground the Mojave would be a tough nut to crack. And they were loyal, the robots by design, the Boomers by their idolization of Alaric personally, with those two forces at his disposal the man could keep the Mojave region rolled up regardless of what the people living there had to say about it. It was after they passed the final robots that his expectations were shaken, though he hid it perfectly.

The ranks of robots were replaced by human soldiers standing in uniform, rifles at their shoulders. They were as unreadable as the robots, only their eyes visible through protective goggles, everything else was obscured. So, this Alaric had managed to whip up a military of his own? Of course there was no way to know how powerful a force it was, but it certainly gave him something to think about. And then there was the name he heard on the radio, 'Mojave Air Force', that suggested unification. Not 'Vegas Air Force' or 'Boomer Pilots', it seemed to suggest that there was more here than simply one man keeping the area under his thumb by controlling two powerful factions. The bigger shock was waiting near the gates, super mutants in metal plate armor, standing sentry with various large firearms and wicked close combat weapons. Long blade-staffs taller even than themselves, miniguns and rocket launchers. The thing that drew his attention the most though was the icon stenciled on their chestpiece, a black outline of an 'ace of spades', the same icon on the fighter's tail fins, and on the soldier's uniforms.

"They're part of the same group?" He asked with surprise.

"We've got all sorts in the Army these days." Victor said as they passed the mutant vanguard, eyes watching warily from within their heavy, almost medieval helmets.

After the mutant squad there were two rickshaws, comfortable enough looking if a little crude, each one manned by a Securitron to pull it along.

"Hop in, Boss is waiting for y'all down in Vegas and it's best not to dilly dally all day." Victor suggested. With no reason or desire to argue, McKinley and his entourage climbed into the little open topped cars, as their attendant robots pulled them at a brisk pace down the road towards the city in the distance.

XXXXX

McKinley hadn't been to New Vegas before, having always been busy in the NCR heartland. That and a bad visit to New Reno had soured him on the concept, but the reports his predecessor had left were very thorough on the state of the region. While many things seemed largely the same, he did notice the differences as well. Robots and soldiers on patrol were obvious. But they didn't just keep to the Vegas area itself, but were patrolling the outer ruins and roadways beyond where the NCR troopers had usually gone, they simply hadn't had the manpower to maintain that kind of force projection everywhere. The roads were active, with caravans and traders going about their business, and workers up on the high wire poles up to their elbows in electrical equipment.

"Working on the power grid?" He asked his robotic guide.

"Yep, folks all over the Mojave are fixing things up, stringing power lines up all over the place, getting the towns working together. Sure nice to see folks working together all over the place."

McKinley nodded, looking from the work crews to the soldiers marching. Yes, yes indeed. It seemed this Alaric had succeeded where they hadn't, binding the area together and having the manpower to spare for projects like this. Perhaps using the threat of the NCR or the Legion's return to motivate people to fall in line with him? It galled him that the locals might see his nation as some land hungry empire after everything they had done to try and help these people. How was their new overlord so much better in their eyes? Or was this a forcible dictatorship by the power and control of the robotic army and this new corps of soldiers? That might be more believable but their intelligence reports from informants indicated that the people seemed well disposed towards the new regime, like they hadn't been towards Mr. House or the NCR before. Exactly what he was doing to win them over would be important to learn, if McKinley was expected to start shifting public opinion back towards NCR annexation.

Eventually they completed their circuit through the outer regions of the city and reached the Freeside main gate, the neon sign glittering invitingly overhead as the gate trundled open and they entered at a stately pace. Surprisingly, apart from gate guards, there were no soldiers on patrol here, just a few tough looking men in leather jackets with hairstyles that could possibly be bullet resistant. Apart from the unblinking Securitrons maintaining their watch at the inner gate, there wasn't any sign of militarism here in Freeside itself, no soldiers or watchful robots keeping the population in line.

Again thinking of New Reno as he looked around, McKinley's eye did notice a few differences. No starving waifs in the street or ratty looking hookers walking up to people, the place seemed clean and tidy in a shabby kind of way. Then again, how much of what he was seeing was true, or just a carefully orchestrated play for his benefit? The reports they were getting back west indicated that there hadn't been the violent persecution of NCR civilians they had feared, but was that because of the new regime or in spite of it? There was no way to know, just not enough information to properly analyze the situation.

Finally they entered the strip, with its lights all shining in the early evening and crowds of people enjoying the venues and entertainment offered by the various casinos, but his eyes were drawn to the Lucky 38, towering over the rest of the Strip. Dominating the skyline of the entire Mojave, it was impossible to forget who was in it, and thus what it represented, the seat of power of the new regime. It must be a nice boon for PR, having a visible symbol of the leader that could be seen from almost anywhere in the wastes, like some old world prince who owned everything he could see from his bedroom window.

"Go on in now, boss is waiting for ya. Oh and go ahead and bring your friends too, no need for them to wait outside." Their robotic guide said with folksy charm.

"Very gracious." McKinley said as he dismounted, his guard falling in alongside him as they walked up the steps of the Lucky 38, guarded by a platoon of soldiers that flanked the steps. They went through the empty casino floor and soon were riding the elevator up the tall spire to meet the man who had made the Mojave his own.

They arrived to find that the penthouse floor of the Lucky 38 had been transformed by its new master into a comfortable meeting area, with numerous chairs and couches set about in different places by the windows, a counter where drinks might be served, McKinley had seen this kind of place before. The kind of space where the powerful and the wealthy of society might mix over drinks and get to know each other, discuss plans and ideas in a place where nobody was clearly set up as being the most important. Familiar as it was, it felt strange to be here all but alone with only one stranger and various robots to greet them. But there before them was the man they had come to see, Alaric, warlord of New Vegas.

He was surprisingly young for someone who had done all he had, perhaps in his mid-twenties. He'd heard the stories, interviewed troopers and officers who had met him, heard the stories of a man in a dusty coat with long hair and sun baked skin walking the Mojave, or later when the power armored juggernaut had stormed major Legion encampments and did what a small army might have struggled with. It was difficult to believe that it was the same man who stood before him now. Alaric wore a very sharp black suit and tie, little traceries of silver catching the light as he moved. His hair was perfect, skin unblemished, not like a man who had spent months fighting everything the wasteland had to offer. He might have been from a prewar magazine cover about the rich and fabulous. Nothing he saw said that this man had been shot in the face only to claw his way back to life, or duel with Lanius until both men were nearly dead, or walk out of a Mojave dust storm to slaughter Legion soldiers in broad daylight.

"Welcome to New Vegas." Said the impeccably dressed overlord, walking over as if he was just welcoming dinner guests to his house. "I hope my security was not too overzealous on your way in, I greatly appreciate your coming to meet with me."

McKinley shook the man's hand as they reached each other, grip firm but neither engaging in some adolescent hand crushing display. "Ambassador McKinley, and I know who you are." He said as they released. "The journey in was quite congenial, my protectors were worried that we would have to walk from Hoover all the way here. Though our alternate landing site was a cause for some alarm."

Alaric grinned a little, as if hearing about the neighborhood troublemaker. "Ah, the Boomers. You'll have to forgive them, it's not often they get the chance to fly against an actual bogey, they tend to get a bit excited. I'm glad we could offer you a ride here in style, but I know from experience that you would have been perfectly safe with these watching over you." He turned from the ambassador for a few moments, greeting the Rangers in turn, shaking their hands and asking their names.

"Yes, we are all lucky to have them watching over us, they have made the whole of the west coast a much better place." McKinley cut in, wondering what purpose this little display had for the man he was talking to. Was it genuine hospitality or some kind of ploy?

"I am sure they have done an admiral job of keeping the peace for the NCR." Alaric said, shaking hands with the last one and holding the man's gaze for a moment through his helmet lenses, before turning and slipping a hand in his pocket, seeming quite casual about this whole affair. Although to be honest McKinley found it a nice little change from the pomp and pageantry that some of his assignment subjected him to.

"I'm sure that recent developments have set people like them on edge, as much as anything can." He said, motioning for McKinley to accompany him over to a wooden table by a window overlooking the Mojave. "Please gentlemen, make yourselves at home." He said to the bodyguards before sitting down opposite of McKinley. "I would like to begin by saying that I have no hostile intentions against the NCR or its citizens, I have had a report drawn up about the number of your people still living in the Mojave, I assure you they have been given the full protection of the law."

"That is very reassuring to hear." McKinley lied, setting his briefcase up on the table. "There are many concerned people back west, I am sure that this will allay some fears, but there are still a number of other concerns. With the Legion only repulsed and not utterly defeated, it seems to many that the situation on the border has only destabilized further. It was tricky enough getting this mission put together, a lot of people don't even want to recognize your authority." Perhaps by calling his position into question, McKinley could get the man to reveal his own concerns about how he was seen, or where the cracks in his power base might lie.

"Oh really?" Alaric said with a slightly curious tone, but also seeming dismissive. "Do they think I'm just another warlord or something? Some fool declaring himself ruler of all in his vision." He looked pointedly out the window. "Though in this world there are few kinds of authority other than the self-declared. If you want proof I can bring you out the original treaties signed by the communities across the Mojave recognizing my legal authority here. I'm not some self-anointed despot, Jacobstown, Primm, Goodsprings, Novac, and everyone else. They all signed up willingly and on clearly agreed upon terms."

Well that was a surprise, McKinley would have to reevaluate his opinion of the man he spoke to. Not many people in the wider wasteland would gain control over a powerful army of robots and then negotiate their way to power. "I should like to study those, but later. In any case I'm sure that the people back home would be interested to see documentation of it. If we are to deal fairly with each other then it would be needed to know the kind of society we are encountering."

Alaric smiled again, it really wasn't a very reassuring expression. "Of course, of course, though I must make this statement clear now ambassador, unambiguous and blunt. The Mojave is not interested in being annexed by anyone. We are a sovereign and independent state, and have no intention of ever assimilating into the New California Republic. In fact you'll find that's a stipulation in the treaties that founded our society."

Of course they would be, McKinley thought to himself. "The NCR shed a lot of blood protecting the Mojave from the Legion. If it weren't for us this whole territory would be occupied by a horde of raping slave traders." He pointed out. "And we are the largest, most resource rich nation in the known world. Peace through unification is a noble goal is it not? We could accomplish far more if we worked together than if we were set as antagonists."

Alaric continued showing that infuriatingly polite smile. "Of course, I wouldn't want to see our nations as enemies, we can achieve a lot more as allies. But that is the only cooperation we will accept, as respected allies, not ignorant locals ready to be annexed and taxed. The NCR came here for strategic resources, I don't buy into that idealistic jargon about spreading civilization, you wanted electrical power from Hoover Dam. Well you can still have that, provided certain conditions are met. But the people of the Mojave have banded together against the NCR, not for it. If they are to be taxed then they'll see that money spent right here, not going to some big shot politician back west." He held up a hand at the last moment. "Just public sentiment, not my express opinion but that's what the people are saying."

McKinley was more interested in what he'd said before, the real reason the NCR cared about the Mojave. Vegas was nice of course, a largely intact prewar city full of interesting technology, and taxing the casinos there could bring in serious revenue to the public coffer. But the thing they really cared about was Hoover, and the wealth of electrical power it had to offer. If they could not redraw the map to put it in NCR territory then as a consolation prize he wouldn't leave this place until he'd secured its output for the NCR. They needed that power if they were to expand, or else they would very soon face a bottleneck in their expansion plans.

"What conditions are you referring to? I am authorized to negotiate for the purchasing of the Dam and the surrounding land, on very generous terms I might add."

Alaric waved a hand like he was physically repelling the idea. "Unacceptable, the Dam remains in our hands, I don't care how much you're offering. However if certain prerequisites are met then I am willing to hammer out a deal for the power to be sold to the NCR, any excess power not consumed in the Mojave region can be routed to the NCR heartland. You'll have to provide the infrastructure to deal with that of course."

Well, it had been worth asking about. Alaric was proud, he could tell that much, and he valued that pride. McKinley suspected the man wouldn't sell any territory for any reason, simply on the principle of it, as if in doing so he was in some way surrendering despite how beneficial it was to himself in the long run. "Very well, that is another issue I am authorized to negotiate. What are your demands?"

"Trade, for the most part." Alaric began. "We desire a mutually profitable trading relationship with the territories west of here. Primarily we are interested in the Brahmin drives and are looking to import beef in large quantities."

That was interesting, was the Mojave facing a food shortage in the future? That could indicate a weakness if properly exploited. "Very well, I am sure we can work out the exact numbers when appropriate, as for the power supply, my superiors are very interested in beginning power transmission as quickly as possible."

Alaric held up a hand. "Beef first." He said simply. "Consider it a down payment. When we are convinced that you meant to deal fairly with us, then we can sit down and negotiate proper terms. A lot of people here see the NCR as a hostile outsider, a magnanimous gesture is needed to make people open to the idea of trade in the first place." He kept on talking as McKinley tried to get a word in. "I want that Brahmin ambassador, you won't get one kilowatt of power until I'm eating steak."

Hiding his frustration with the calm given by long experience, McKinley nodded. "We can work out the exact details later, I simply wished to voice the options open to us."

"I did not intend offense." Alaric said with a hint of apology.

Was the food situation really that desperate, that he would risk souring relations at their first meeting in order to get a Brahmin drive sent to their territory? In any case, getting favorable relations with the locals and reasonable prices for that power would be worth it, but perhaps it was time to brandish the stick as well as the carrot.

"There are some elements back home that didn't even want this mission to be launched." He noted.

"Oh?" Was the only reply.

"Yes, as I said there is a sub current in the halls of power that don't believe you're worth negotiating with. Brigade General Moore especially, she said that the next time she came to the Mojave it would be to put your head on a pike. Not that any such action is being seriously considered of course, but it may be difficult to meet your… requests if you press to hard. Not everyone where I come from is as willing to negotiate for things they think they should by rights already own."

There was a slight curling of Alaric's fingers on the right hand, as if forming a fist. "I am familiar with Moore." He said neutrally. "Though I was not aware that she had been promoted. That is an interesting development ambassador, I will be sure to keep it in mind. Now if you will excuse me, I believe we are done here for the moment, Victor can show you to your quarters, and your staff. Oh, and you will be given vouchers for some of the Strip's entertainment, never let it be said that I am a poor host."

Knowing not to push the matter in his host's own home, McKinley nodded and shook the man's hand, again feeling the restrained grip that could probably snap every bone in his hand. "I look forward to the next time we speak, there are many things that must be discussed." He then turned and went to the elevator, riding down with his Ranger escorts.

Back in the penthouse, Alaric watched them go, before he reached into his pocket again and pulled out the scrap of paper the last Ranger had slipped him when they had shaken hands, reading it over now that he was in private.

"Yes, many things indeed." He said to himself.

===Author's Note===

I think I finally got the line break issue sorted out, for some reason the breaks I was using weren't uploading properly, my thanks to everyone who pointed that out.

Ah, politics, isn't it exciting! And a cloak and dagger complication? Wheels within wheels here in New Vegas.

As always, please review and comment, would love to hear what you have to say.


	12. Rumors, Bargains and Lies

Alaric swirled the brandy in his glass around, sitting in a private corner of Club Zoara in Gomorrah, thinking over the day's events. The meeting with the NCR's chosen mouthpiece had gone rather well all things considered. The Boomers weren't thrilled with having so many outsiders in their homeland, but as a personal favor to him, and for the chance to show up the 'western savages' with their air power, they had allowed it. That those two planes were the only fighters they had, and were in no way qualified for doing anything more complicated or demanding than flying casually was a secret he kept to himself. The patrols along the roads had been outfitted with the first batch of uniforms they had made and work crews carefully positioned along the tour route to look impressive and progressive. It was like some old world amusement park, the carriage ride leading the guests past an array of carefully scripted scenes, in this case showing the Mojave as it would be, but not as it was today.

After that he had led the conversation quite well he thought, the bit about the Brahmin drive would work well, it was not an unreasonable demand considering the NCR's foundation on Brahmin herding, and it might plant the idea that he faced food shortages. In reality, he hoped that with the agricultural knowledge from Big MT the Mojave would become a net exporter of food, but the demand served two purposes. Firstly, it might make the NCR try to exploit a fictional weakness rather than looking for a real one, secondly it gave him a plausible reason to hold off on supplying power from the Dam by making it look like he had it operational, but simply was unwilling to give it. The very real work done on the infrastructure across the region made it clear that they had plenty of power, it was simply from a different source and Alaric felt no need to disabuse the ambassador of his notions, especially when they were useful tools to exploit. That simply left the matter of the Ranger and his cryptic message.

As he watched, a scantily clad waitress handed a drink to the man sitting some distance away at the bar, before pointing to where Alaric sat in explanation, compliments of the house. When the Ranger looked over to him, Alaric raised his glass and tilted his head in invitation. The ranger took the drink, walking over.

"Finding the establishment to your liking?" Alaric asked as he rose from his chair. "I'm quite proud of the place myself." He could have turned running the casino over to someone else, but after cleaning house here he set up a simple watch program with Yes Man and kept it owned under his own name, it was a useful venue and entertaining in its own right, and it let him give free passes away as gifts if he wanted to. It was good to be the boss.

"Nicer than New Reno, which is nice enough." The man said. He was older, but still looked to be built of iron, his face weathered like stone in The Divide. "There someplace we can talk?"

Alaric nodded, unlocking the door into the more private wing of the casino. The Ranger followed behind him, undistracted by the sights and sounds of the area around them, until finally they were up in Alaric's private domain within the casino, someplace he went to relax, stage private celebrations with friends, relax somewhere away from the responsibilities of the Lucky 38, or to enjoy the entertainments Gomorrah itself had to offer. While he didn't much care about what other people thought about him, there were some things best done discreetly if you wanted to maintain respect. It was a classy place, fixed up nicely with a stage, a little bar, smooth jazz music playing over hidden speakers.

"I do hope this is not some convoluted assassination plan." Alaric said with a chuckle, taking a seat at a cocktail table. "Heavens knows I've survived more than a few of those in my day."

"I heard the stories." The Ranger said, sitting opposite of him. "Some reports say you inflicted irreparable damage to the enemy elite through the attrition of units sent to eliminate you."

"One would think that they would get the message after the first ten times their hit squads vanished into the Mojave. But then again I wouldn't believe the stories people tell about me if I hadn't done them myself. Now, I can assure you that this room is very secure, so what can I do for you?"

If the Ranger was uncomfortable being in a classy nightclub while still wearing his casual wasteland clothes, he didn't show it. He stuck out like a sore thumb next to Alaric in his tailored suit in a room out of some glossy prewar magazine. "There are a lot of stories about you circling in the Rangers." The man began after a few moments. "And some are difficult to believe, but we've heard stories like that before. Some people call you the third coming of the Vault Dweller."

Alaric raised a brow in curiosity. "Pardon, who? And not the second coming?"

"Second already happened." The Ranger explained simply. "The Vault Dweller came from a place called Vault 13, saved the town that grew into the NCR, fought The Master and his mutant army, saved the wasteland. Second was the Chosen One, a tribal warrior and grandson of the Vault Dweller. Fought the Enclave, drove them from the west, helped the NCR grow, and saved the wasteland." He explained simply. "Both men changed the course of history, fought entire armies and won, fixed a lot of problems. Now you come along, this isn't the first time we've seen reports of people with miraculous abilities doing things that should be impossible. Not the first time, probably not the last."

Alaric was curious and more than a little surprised. He tried to study as much history as he could, but there was just so much and records were often spotty. "You seem to know a lot about this, is this common knowledge back in the NCR?"

The Ranger made a 'so-so' gesture with his hand. "The Chosen One is well known, he was a friend to President Tandi during the twilight years of her life, helped the NCR expand peacefully by befriending towns, making alliances, and saved the whole thing from the Enclave's plans. The Vault Dweller is less well known, he walked the wastes back when the wasteland was young, the world was a much more brutal and chaotic place back then. No flags, no nations, no order, just raiders and gangs and little towns trying to survive. Most in the NCR don't know him, but the Rangers, we remember."

Alaric was fascinated, and said nothing, simply listening intently. The gravely tone, the weight the man gave these words, it was like crouching around the campfire and listening to a tribe's storyteller recount the old legends.

"The Vault dweller didn't walk alone, like the Chosen One, like you, he made friends, found allies. One of them was a Desert Ranger, by the name of Tycho, one of the first. That man was my great grandfather, so my name is Tycho as well. What they did together, the way they shaped the world, that memory has been kept alive in my family, and by the Rangers. Well, some of them at least."

Tycho made a little tic with the corner of his mouth, not quite a grimace. "Together they helped make a more orderly wasteland, helped the Followers of the Apocalypse to grow and thrive, freed the Boneyard from oppression, saved Necropolis from strife, removed cults and crime families plaguing the wasteland. Not far from here either, just west, surprised he never walked to here, not that far. Or maybe he did, nobody knows. The Rangers grew in number and strength after The Master's defeat, we worked to keep the wasteland orderly and safe rather than letting it slip into decline again, spread east and dug our heels in. My family had always been in old Nevada, the Mojave, north of here, moving about. For one hundred years we kept the peace, then the Legion came."

He shook his head. "We couldn't keep them at bay, too many of them, too determined. Kill them and they just keep coming. The NCR came from the west, caught us in the middle, so we signed up when they offered. Traded our independence for their strength, so they could defend the territory we couldn't alone. Worked at first, Hanlon beat them when they came for Hoover, sent them scurrying." He sighed deeply. "Then, then the trouble started. Oliver came, sent us all down to Baja to chase ghost stories so he could play war hero. Then planned to get the lot of us killed looking like idiots so he could look better."

Tycho gave him a long, hard look. "Then you come, pull the rug out from under Oliver so fast his damn hat barely stays on, sent him packing in shame. And we get pulled back with him, back to the NCR to keep their borders secure. We signed a treaty with them, our service in exchange for their protection of the Mojave and greater Nevada. We did that because there was nobody else here who could stand up to the Legion, or any other threat that came along of that magnitude. And there wasn't any one person who could turn back that tide, not this time. But they failed, couldn't stop the Legion, couldn't stop you, and now we're pulled back from our homeland and maybe even used for invading it when the time comes."

Alaric interrupted. "Invasion?" He asked simply.

Tycho shrugged. "Moore talks, people hear, not sure if she realizes sometimes. She wants you dead, the Boomers, Kings, Followers, everyone who supports you, wants them all to hang in the street. Says only way to make sure you're never a threat is to burn the city to the ground, said she'd do it if she had the chance. Moore's not one of us, she's NCR Ranger to the bone, never walked Nevada when the fires hadn't died yet. To her this is foreign soil, enemy territory, threat to be removed. This is our home, we wants to protect it, not plant the NCR flag on a pile of bodies. Right now Moore's held in check, dog on a leash, but Kimball wants the Mojave bad, wants to look good, if McKinley can't get a win with his silver tongue he'll set loose the hounds. We don't want that."

"Who is 'we'?" Alaric asked, having an idea and feeling they were close to the final point of all this.

"The old Desert Rangers, ones who were here before the NCR came and claimed the Mojave. We sided with them because there was nobody else here to fight for the people, now that's changed, you're here now. Last people we gave our loyalty to had us shipped to the other end of the world for politics, barely came back in time to fight the Legion again just to be thrown out by someone else. We want out, NCR broke their treaty with us when they cut and run from the Mojave and let the Legion rape and burn to satisfy Oliver's ego. The old Nevada Rangers are getting itchy and looking to come home."

Tycho gave Alaric another evaluating stare. "I'm here to see if they're welcome back."

Alaric interlaced his fingers, thinking carefully at the situation before him. A sizable fraction of the NCR's elite force, especially one as beloved and heavily publicized as the Rangers defecting could seriously increase tensions. At the same time perhaps the NCR's people seeing their heroes defect could make them rethink whether he was really the bad guy here. "They will not be turned away, if they come." He began slowly. "But I must advise caution. If you all just up and leave at once, especially while these negotiations are taking place, it could be very bad for relations. I want peace with the NCR, I don't like them overmuch but I don't hate them, I'd like to be a good neighbor to them. If you can get your people out a bit at a time without raising havoc, especially once things calm down a bit, that would be ideal."

"And what would you have us do?" Tycho asked simply. "Join your army?"

He considered it. "Probably not, that ended badly if you're any indication. No, I need a police force, people to walk the wastes, patrol the roads, keep the peace and enforce laws beyond the town borders. Think you're qualified?" He asked sardonically.

Tycho grinned slightly. "Four generations of my family history says yes, it's the kind of work we used to do, that shouldn't be a problem. I'll try to keep this quiet for as long as I can, don't want Moore getting the excuse she needs to start chopping heads."

"That would be much appreciated… now I think you should go, it wouldn't do for a loyal NCR soldier and the evil overlord of the Mojave to be seen vanishing and reappearing at the same time. See yourself out? I have some thinking to do."

Tycho nodded. "I'll be in touch." He said, leaving a notebook on the table. "Some details, to consider." He said before he stood to leave.

"One question," Alaric asked . "why so eager to come back and work for me? How do you know I'm not as bad as the NCR was for you?"

"Like I said." The Ranger explained as he left. "Third coming of the Vault Dweller. Call it superstition, but we know when the winds are changing. First time he came he helped the NCR start off, second time he made it stable and safe, maybe this time you'll help them learn their lessons before they destroy themselves. You don't look like the man from my father's stories, but I looked you in the eye and recognized you. Maybe it's just the tribal in me, but it's what I feel." Then he turned and walked out the door.

Alaric leaned back in his chair once he was alone, blowing out a tired breath, thinking of all the implications that faced him now. He'd have to play this close to the chest, take things slowly and carefully so as not to enrage the NCR, get a system in place to prepare for the turnover. But this could work well to his favor, he needed a police force and now one was offering to come and sign on free of charge. But Tycho's words had affected him more than he wanted to let on.

Alaric was a man without a past, he didn't even know his birth name, he'd taken the name 'Alaric' from an old book, 'Reynolds' from a nametag on the inside of a coat he'd worn in the wasteland. He didn't know his history, his past, it was a struggle to try to understand the world sometimes. When he'd been dug out of that grave he'd had some simple clothes, no identification, and one personal item that always baffled him. He reached slowly into his dress jacket and pulled it out, looking at the old metal canteen thoughtfully. It was dented and scratched from long years of wear and tear, but the blue and yellow paint still clearly showed the number '13' on the outer surface.

"Third coming eh?" He asked the empty room.

XXXXX

McKinley glanced down at his notes, hoping he was right on these figures. He was back with Alaric Reynolds, discussing the future of their relationship, and it had all been rather one sided. Every option McKinley offered had been stonewalled, every accusation or potential problem had been offhandedly dismissed. His opponent had to be lying by this point, nobody was this good, no situation was this secure or flawless and McKinley had enough experience as a diplomat to know when someone was putting up a smokescreen. He couldn't be sure exactly what the man sitting across from him was hiding but he knew it was something, perhaps some major weakness or some impending threat he didn't want to let on about. Whatever the case McKinley's job was to get the NCR an advantage out of this FUBAR situation one way or another.

"To be frank, let's cut the crap." He said as he leaned in, looking up from his notes to the overlord across the table. "I know you're bluffing about how secure your economy is. Vegas is a tourist trap, always has been, and you're not paying for all this military buildup and infrastructure renewal out of pocket. The casinos here on the Strip are your biggest source of income and there aren't any tourists coming from us, and certainly none from the Legion. Your economy is in a holding pattern without trade and outside visitors and it isn't going to go anywhere until we reach an agreement. An agreement that is never going to be reached if you continue stonewalling the Republic and playing high and mighty in your tower. Sir." He finished, figuring after a while that the only way to cut through the defenses of self-assured bullshit Alaric generated around himself was to be as blunt as possible.

The man's response was admirably restrained. "You have to understand, a strong front is needed for the people to feel secure." He explained, as if this was all still on his script. "But I have always understood that a healthy relationship with the NCR is needed for this nation to thrive. Your people visiting the Strip has been a major boon to the region, I wouldn't see that end. And there is a lot that we can both gain by a strong trade relationship. So if you need some concession, then I'd like to hear what it is."

McKinley restrained himself as well. He'd come to gain a new respect for his opponent over the last week or so that he had been here. The man was flawless in his delivery, so restrained and composed that he left you questioning his every little tic. Were you seeing the cracks in his mask, or was it planted to get a reaction he desired? The man was a fine actor who knew his part well, and seemed to have contingencies for his contingencies, and the rare ability to say anything and everything with absolute conviction. The man could say that the city's power came from purple fairies running in hamster wheels and it would seem that he believed it with all his heart and soul. That kind of man was difficult to read, and thus difficult to trust. He was sure that at least some of what he had seen on his visit to the Mojave was an act, but it was almost impossible to tell what was and was not on the script because it was all presented with such straight faced sincerity.

After a pause to consider and give his next statement more weight, McKinley shuffled his notes a little before speaking with the air of one who is finally being totally honest after an hour of double talk. "Listen, I know you're very proud of your army and that little stunt at Nellis was certainly impressive. But you can't stand against something as big as the NCR. Moore's out for blood and if she gets what she wants this whole region is going to end up smoking. I don't want that, I know you don't want that, but it's what's going to happen if you keep acting like you are now. I know we're not welcome here, but we are here, and that's not going to change. The people back west aren't just going to shrug and walk away from something as important as this, and they're not going to back down because you demand it."

He pushed a note across the table with a plan of trade tariffs written up on it, as well as some bullet points for a treaty regarding their shared border. "It's a rough sketch of what needs to happen, but it's a start. Give me something to work with, something to placate the president and the folks back on the Big Circle. The Bear isn't known to back down from a fight, if that's what it looks like they'll get here then they'll come in swinging. Your only hope, and you know it, is to be friendly, to be more help than harm. I don't want another war, I don't want to see people get killed when there's no reason, so give me something to work with. Because I can guarantee you right now that if you send me back with what I've got today, Kimball will give Moore her marching orders."

"I'll turn the Mojave into a deathtrap. She has to know that." Alaric said, his voice dark and almost frighteningly restrained. As he sat there reclining in his perfect suit, his face a mask of absolute calm, he seemed almost demonic.

"Do you think she cares?" McKinley knew from his reports that Alaric disdained Moore from when they worked together for a short time, it was quite possible that the friction between them had been a deciding factor in the man going his own way. If McKinley could play on his dislike of that woman and present himself as the likable, reasonable alternative, then it could be his best shot at getting some worthwhile concessions from him. "She'll have carte blanche to wage war against a hated enemy, public support behind the campaign like Oliver never had, and now that you've bound the Mojave together into one people she'll be able to justify her campaign to subjugate the populace. All under your banner will share the same punishment, and I don't think she'll let the threat of one bomber dissuade her from marching troops right up to Hoover itself."

McKinley's heart almost stopped beating as he watched the man sitting there, a shadow falling across him as he considered everything before him, doing the math. Whatever trump cards this army of his had to play, he had to understand that the sheer size of the NCR gave it the advantage, they could overrun him with numbers just like they had the Brotherhood. He couldn't win, put up a hell of a fight to be sure, but even a deathclaw could die by small cuts. With great slowness, the man reached out and picked up the little note.

"Favorable tariffs, legal protection for NCR citizens, cheap power once my demands are met." He summarized. "Assurances of no territory acquisition to the west, no military or paramilitary units over the border without express permission. No hassling of trade caravans across the border, no confiscation of goods not ruled unlawful in either territory, no exporting of unlawful goods into NCR territory or conducting trade through said territory without the permission of local authorities." He looked up from the notes. "Excepting the tariffs of course, I expect equal consideration as far as the borders go, no military units patrolling into my territory, no running caravans across my border without consent, clear?"

"Absolutely equitable." McKinley assured him, knowing he'd finally scored what they really needed. "And your requirement for the beef shipment will be met absolutely, I have assurances from my government."

"You do, already?" He asked with a bit of surprise.

"They're calling it humanitarian aid." McKinley responded dismissively. It was clever in his mind, it painted the NCR as the powerful neighbor giving aid to the poor starving people of the Mojave out of the goodness of their hearts, and made Reynolds' regime implicit in their theoretical starvation the NCR needed to save them from. The implication was not lost on him it seemed.

"Call it what you like, but I expect it here in full before major trade talks start up. And we'll need to check for disease in the herd of course."

Was he trying to buy time for something? Had the quick delivery unnerved him somehow? Impossible to say, the man was so controlled, so restrained in his emotional displays. At least they had gotten a start, show a little respect for his authority and he seemed to lap it up. For now at least the NCR would be in the favorable position, milking trade and tourism to the Mojave once relations cooled down a bit.

"Drink?" His host asked, making him look up from his notes again.

"Thank you." He said with a nod, watching the overlord of Vegas walk to the drink table and pour two glasses of something brownish. He had always prided himself on the way he could read people, pay attention to their body language, and Alaric was an interesting case. It was the way he moved, subtle body language, how he walked as if compensating for the holster on his hip or a backpack he didn't wear. But it was also his build, it had taken a while for McKinley to notice exactly what it was, but he'd been on edge around the man for a while at first.

It was his proportions, the limbs, the way he walked, the build of his body. It was all perfect, exactly balanced. Muscle enough to be very strong, but not enough to impact flexibility or agility. Tall enough for it to be an advantage, but not quite tall enough it would make him stand out or cause problems. A face that rode the line between handsome and beautiful, like it tried to be both but didn't want to lose either depending on how its owner wanted to be seen at that moment. Every aspect about his form was the best it could possibly be without impacting the function of something else, and all that coupled with a mind that seemed brilliant enough to make total use of it. To see him move was like watching the Vitruvian Man step off of the page, it was as if a mathematician had tried to design the perfect example of the human male by formulating equations for every physical parameter and then finding the values that made them all equal out. And it all stopped just short of being disturbing, you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it with years of experience to notice it, how he was ever so slightly better at everything than your instincts told you he should be.

There was a design in his body, it was artificial if you looked close enough, most telling was the scars, or total lack of them. He knew that the man before him had been shot twice in the head and left for dead, and then had spent months fighting through things no living being should have survived. Grievous injuries, close calls, exploring blighted places no sane man should ever venture to, and yet his skin was unblemished. He knew there were rumors about possible surgical alterations being made at a clinic run by the Followers, he'd have to look into that more in the future.

"Something troubling you?" Alaric asked as he took the drink, nursing it for the moment.

"No, simply considering the implications of all this. There's going to be one hell of a dustup when all this gets worked out back home."

"Perhaps, perhaps." They sat together for a long moment, looking to their drinks, two men who might have been friends if their worlds didn't set them against each other, each trying to pry apart the other's lies as they hid behind their own. "To possibilities." Alaric said after a moment, raising his glass.

"To the future." McKinley responded, sealing the negotiations with the clink of glasses.

===Author's Note===

It doesn't seem there will be war. With the NCR. Today.

Tomorrow? Who the hell knows.

Reviews appreciated.


	13. Whispers in the Mist

Anguis ran a tired hand over his face as he sat in the lamplight reading reports from the outer units and settlements. It was not nearly as positive as he had been hoping. Just before the final battle in the Mojave some kind of disaster had befallen several of their settlements leading towards the area, wiping them from the face of the world and leaving only charred remains. Several scout teams had investigated only to fall ill and die before it was realized and reported that the area suffered severe radiation contamination. The idea that they faced an opponent capable of calling down the same wrath that ended the last world was something that caused him great disquiet, looking up to the sky sometimes and wondering if in the next few moments fiery doom might rain down upon the unknowing city.

At least his troubles would be over then, though. In the meantime he had a lot more to deal with while he was still in this life, and none of it was pleasant or simple. He had proven very adept at running the affairs of Legion territory whilst Caesar was gone, because he was trusted with the position and wielded authority himself. Now he had to play guide and advisor to Lanius, who was not exactly the most subtle or brilliant man ever to live. Terrifyingly powerful of course, but not much of a leader. Anguis lived in constant fear that something might eventually push that man far enough to forget that he needed Anguis to keep his world spinning.

He was debating on how best to inform his master of the problems he saw before them, namely the as of yet unknown situation in the Mojave, as well as disquieting rumors he was hearing from his informants. There was unrest in the ranks and some Centurions were getting twitchy, for lack of a better term. He was afraid that they might be looking at the beginnings of a schism, or perhaps even a rebellion. Such a thing was unprecedented in the history of the Legion, it wasn't even a concept worth thinking about before. Their society was based upon order, of duty and loyalty. Each man did his duty to the man above him, and was in return honest and just consideration by his superiors.

They were a culture of servants, an army of slaves, and untroubled by that status. They understood what it meant to lead dutiful and disciplined lives, and that responsibility did not grant worth or status. You led because you were skilled at leading and produced results, not because you were more important than anyone else, all were tools to be used, all were parts in the machine. Some were made of rarer stuff to be sure, but all needed to function properly for the job to be done. Anguis had never once felt a twinge of discontent for his position, a dutiful and honest slave to his master Caesar, a tool performing a useful and needed function, no more or less important than a lowly rank and file Legionnaire, than a computer terminal or a well maintained firearm. His position and role was only different because his skills allowed him to fulfill a different function. He found purpose and satisfaction in fulfilling that function to the best of his abilities, and never sought to gain more out of life than what he was given.

But now, with Lanius usurping the position of Caesar by merit of declaring it and there being nobody to disagree with him, a deadly precedent was set. Now other commanders, Centurions in command of other settlements and far flung outposts and divisions were starting to wonder if they could do a better job, if they should rule. Promotion was not something to be desired in the Legion, it was not a reward for good behavior, it carried no benefits, you performed the task you were best suited to. But now Lanius lived as a demigod, and others began to covet that power. The base human greed and corruption the Legion's structure was meant to prevent had begun to creep back in, to taint the vision of unity, purpose and purity that they were meant to aspire to.

Anguis had realized that he was beginning to watch his beloved Legion grow diseased around him, if this was not handled delicately they could fall into a succession crisis, civil war, or disparate bands could simply march off and desert their posts to create their own futures elsewhere, with themselves in charge. Had Anguis been in authority he could have solved this, rectified the situation, but he had to work through Lanius to prevent this disaster before it began. But if Lanius found out what was happening then he would respond the only way he knew how, executions, mass crucifixions, the exact stimulus which would begin a revolution in the first place.

He had sent word to his spies, he may not have had the resources of the Frumantarii but he had his contacts, people who owed him for past favors or indiscretions he helped handle. Not the most honorable solution but sometimes needs must. Identify the most likely troublemakers, find weaknesses, something he could use against them in honest council and court. If he could find a way to talk them down individually before this became a major crisis, then this whole disgusting affair could be avoided without Lanius ever getting involved.

Less easily resolved was the Mojave issue. Nothing had come from that place since the war had been lost. No word, no travel, no trade, not even a reprisal. Just eerie silence after the crushing defeat. His spies in the NCR were not being very helpful, they only knew rumors, something about a new power on the rise that had people both worried and angry. Perhaps they would fight each other, so much the better, the Legion had its own problems to deal with and whatever Lanius thought they were not ready for another campaign. There were also reports from other borders, from the northeast came rumors of some other force in the wasteland, the occasional contact between scouting parties that usually ended in a few shots fired before fleeing, and even more fragmentary reports from the far south that spoke of unusual incidents and sightings of ghouls of all things. But those creatures had some kind of pack instinct so it was hardly surprising, if a little noteworthy.

He poured himself another cup of water and drafted the latest orders to his agents and informants on his terminal, sending them off on a secure transmission burst, something no one in the Legion could intercept or trace. Anguis had been given many secrets from his former master, command codes, overrides, hidden access to the most secure data storage systems, and he had not deigned to share all of them with Lanius when he had handed over the throne. Loyalty to one's master was the founding ideology of the Legion to be sure, but Anguis had yet to decide who his master was, the vision of his dead dictator, or the tortured titan that squatted on his throne.

XXXXX

Chase's careful footsteps picked their way through the Dead City, the Shroud hanging tight and close around him like an old friend. It had always seemed familiar and normal but after having walked under the wide open sky and the endless plains of the Mojave it felt all too close, smothering in fact, choking the life out of this place so that nothing could grow. He had never truly been afraid of this place but after seeing what the real world was like it made this familiar place so much worse to walk, where the only things that lurched and scuttled may as well have been deliberate insults to life itself. Sometimes he forgot just for a moment why he was here, like his journey to the Mojave was some wildly hopeful dream, before one of his companions would come back into vision and he would remember what he was now.

"So nobody has ever figured out where this Shroud comes from?" Royce asked as he walked cautiously alongside him, his sniper rifle slung on his back and exchanged for an R99 assault rifle with a suppressor and a folding stock. "Seems like the kind of thing that would be important, considering the affect it has on your world."

He had asked a lot of questions like this, constantly. He seemed very curious all the time about what life was like, what they did here, how they survived and lived in this place. Chase wondered if it was curiosity or simply another attempt to get him to talk about his past for whatever reason. "Nobody who set out looking ever came back, and there aren't that many who go looking. I said before we don't have a lot of protective gear good enough to protect you up here for long, not everybody who's curious can just go wandering up here. Besides, most people seem to think the Shroud just covers the entire world, that it's all there is up here. Live with that kind of isolation for long enough and it just becomes normal, as normal as fire and radiation, it's just a part of the world you try to avoid."

"Your people sound very jaded." The marksman noted.

"Maybe, maybe we need to be in a place like this. If you think about it too much it wears you down, burns you out. Need to keep looking at what you can make better rather than how things have always been. Shroud's always been here, just a fact of life, nobody's ever been able to do anything about it so we just try to live with it."

Sawbones cut in. "It's going to be a major problem though, considering that we'll have to move work crews through here, run convoys. If this road is so important, then we have to figure out at least some kind of idea where it's coming from. If not then any convoy moving through here is going to face a lot of dangers that could otherwise be avoided."

Chase thought about it. Lift the Shroud? Could such a thing be possible? Of course it was possible, he knew enough from his travels now to understand it was probably some kind of artificial phenomenon. If some machine or device was creating it, then it could be shut down as well, at least in theory. To lift the shroud, a dream so wild that none even dared consider it for fear their lives would be too depressing compared to that possibility, it would make a lot of lives a lot better. Chase had never considered himself a generous person, he had never had much for himself and whatever he did have was earned at great effort and carefully guarded, but something like this demanded they at least think about it.

"We'll go looking." He said after a long moment. "But we take it even more carefully than before, nobody who's ever gone looking for the source of the Shroud has ever come back alive, it could just be the city's dangers, or it could be something else."

"What else could it be?" Five Card asked.

Tony shook his head. "If it is artificial, it's possible someone set it up on purpose, if that's the case then there could still be someone around to ensure no random stranger wanders in and turns it off. That's making a lot of assumptions but it's possible."

"Or," Sawbones interceded. "we know the Shroud is radioactive, if the radiation is more concentrated at its source it's possible that the feral Ghouls could wander close to it on instinct, they would be stronger the closer to the source they get."

"Let's just see what's out there." Chase cut in before they got themselves too worked up over hypotheticals. "Any idea where to start?"

"Any area that you've always known to stay away from." Tony suggested.

Sawbones nodded. "And someplace near the center of the city, we're in a bowl in the terrain so something in the center of that bowl would have the best chance of keeping saturation across the city like this."

Chase looked over the map on his Pipboy, conversing with his companions until eventually they narrowed it down to a likely area, which was still alarmingly big. "If it's an artificial phenomenon, it's probably coming from somewhere in that area." Sawbones decided, pointing down at the circle they had drawn up.

Chase looked at the circle, smack in the middle of the areas he'd always decided to stay away from, where the Ghosts were too thick. But he'd done a lot recently that he would never have imagined. "Let's get moving then." He announced, setting off down the quiet streets before he could lose his nerve.

They progressed deeper and deeper into the city, moving in a slow single file line through the best cover they could find, the Shroud growing thicker as they went. The visible world was shrinking little by little as they progressed, the all-encompassing fog drawing closer about them until they could barely see more than a few feet in any direction.

"The conditions seem to confirm this Shroud is coming from some kind of ground source." Sawbones noted as they crept along. "It grows thicker as we near whatever is generating it. Radiological threats and chemical contamination is growing stronger, our suits are more than enough to protect us for now but I would not like to linger here overlong."

Chase nodded. "I haven't heard of anyone ever coming back from this region, we're getting near the river. There are settlements right beneath our feet but everyone knows the surface here is a death sentence." He glanced down at the pavement, knowing that just a few layers of dirt and stone separated him from the security of the metro. It may as well have been on the far side of the planet right now.

"Still nothing on thermal." Tony noted, everyone with their heads on swivels looking for contacts. "I thought there would be more here?"

"There normally are." Chase said with some confusion. "They're abnormally thin, they should have stumbled across us by now. I was noticing some odd behavior when I left the first time, but I can't think of anything that would explain this. If they're attracted to radiation then they should be thick around this area, but there's barely anything here, we've yet to see one of them."

"Ferals have a pack instinct." Tony pointed out. "It could be that something else has drawn their attention and they wandered off."

"Possibly." Chase shrugged.

They walked for a few minutes more, the Shroud now so thick you could barely see ten feet, they had to huddle close together to avoid losing eye contact in the Shroud. Thermal sensors or no, you didn't want to put your faith in a breakable machine in a place like this if you could avoid it. Then Chase held up a clenched fist. "Wait! I see something."

They watched the distance, sighting in and readying their weapons, there was a heat haze in the distance. "Thermal signature, doesn't appear to be a person." Five Card observed, entering into his professional, clipped tones. For all his emotional displays he seemed to restrain himself when deployed, to some degree at least. He was right, the thermal was a general haze of heat in the near distance, rising and cooling from the ground.

"Could this be it?" Royce wondered aloud. Chase didn't bother answering, walking forwards towards the heat haze, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rising up as he drew nearer. Still nothing, no visible sentry, no traps, no random wandering ghosts to run into. He gripped his AK-47 tighter in his gloved hands.

"Stay sharp." He warned, giving the sniper a sideways glance.

They advanced, almost upon the heat source now, starting to see what it was. The heat was coming from beneath the ground, carried up into the air in a pillar of heated air or vapor, they could only see the orange-yellow thermal signature of the cooling vapor as it rose up into the air before it vanished into the background heat of the Shroud all around them.

"A gas vent of some kind." Sawbones noted, lowering his weapon and walking towards it. "So this Shroud is artificial, something down there is generating it and pumping it up into the atmosphere." He noted, pointing up. Chase followed his finger, looking up into the air before he looked back down.

"Sawbones, move!" He shouted, seeing the bright red of a hand reaching up from the vent and snatching at the medic where he stood, latching onto his left arm.

"Ah!" The medic shouted, teetering on the brink as the thing pulled at him, before the man raised his Thompson one handed and let a burst loose into its face, sending it clanging back down the pipe.

"More of them!" Sawbones shouted, jumping back quickly. Chase watched as he saw clawing hands, heads and torsos emerging from the grates, clambering and scrambling their way up to the surface, their body heat having been hidden by the heat of the gas they were emerging from.

"Open fire!" He shouted as the first wave took off charging towards them.

The crawling, shrieking horde clawed their way up the pipes, throwing access hatches wide open as they clambered and lurched into the open. The Shroud here pressed against the glass of their masks and the only way to see was their thermal sensors that rendered everything in reds and blues. He opened up with his rifle, it was tempting to switch to use full auto to hose down the approaching horde, but even in this kind of situation you had to aim. Ghosts would just keep coming if you wounded them, they seemed to ignore pain when there was prey to be had, you had to put them down for the count. Despite his hammering heart he focused and aimed, drilling rounds into the nearest creatures with center of mass shots.

"Do we fall back?!" Five Card shouted as he opened up with his light machinegun, long sustained bursts eating up ammo from the 200 round pack and sending a cascade of spent casings clattering to the pavement, bright red in the infrared battlezone.

"No!" Chase shouted back, saying nothing more as his rifle clacked empty, already drawing another magazine and reloading mechanically, racking the charging handle to fire again. He had never seen a horde this thick, this determined, Sawbones must have been right about them inhabiting this area in greater numbers.

A flash of movement to his side made him turn and raise his rifle in a defensive stance, warding off the scything hand that the nearest wasted figure slashed towards his head. In that instant he recognized the two bladed metal claw strapped onto its forearm, the same as he had seen when he first left. In an instant the moment was gone as Royce gunned the monster down from beside him, the less powerful 5.56 NATO rounds his R91 used still more than enough against these unarmored creatures in close quarters.

Not sparing any time to thank him, Chase bashed his rifle's wooden stock against another charging creature, cracking its head open before pouring a long burst into another pack as they climbed up.

"I really think we should leave!" Sawbones interjected, inserting another 50 round drum into his Thompson's action. "They seem endless!"

"Hold your ground!" Chase commanded again, sounding much angrier this time. He grimaced as he heard the LMG fall silent as Five Card reloaded the big ammo can, the creatures rallying. Suddenly a bright lance of heat flashed across his IR scopes, searing his eyes. "Laser fire!" He warned, ducking instinctively and firing towards the origin source, lost in a wash of bodies as more laser bursts flashed out.

Five Card started firing again, one long continuous burst. The heavy gunner started shouting as he fired, a one note cry of anger that built to a crescendo until it seemed like he was trying to outshout the weapon he was firing, the constant stream of 5.56 rounds chopping through the unarmored ghosts' emaciated forms like some kind of cutting laser. They all opened up, their combined fire as they formed up pushing back the horde with the sheer weight of lead being thrown out. The Shroud must work against the beasts far more than them, they only had normal eyes after all and not thermal sensors, the horde became disorganized, the fire walked them back to the openings of the grates. "Forward." Chase grunted and began walking forward, rifle firing as he went.

They advanced in a solid line, pumping rounds into any deviation in the thermal background they saw, before they finally stood over the lip of the pipes, firing down into them. "Royce, Tony, close the grates." He ordered, the rest of them keeping guard over the tunnels to keep the beasts pinned down. One by one the metal grates were slammed close over the pipes and firmly latched in place, the sounds of the shrieking horde diminishing into echoing calls of pain and rage, before finally dying out far below the earth.

XXXXX

After that, they had dragged some of the smaller, one person vehicles over the grates, ensuring that nothing could climb up out of them again. The steam pillar still emerged from the openings but at least no shrieking horde of monstrosities would harass them again. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself and his heartbeat, wishing he could wipe away the sweat on his face from within the confines of his gasmask.

"Why didn't you let us run?" Sawbones asked, the first to speak more than one or two words since the fight. Everyone turned to look at Chase, evidently wondering the same thing. "We could have gotten killed staying here, why?"

Chase shrugged. "Tunnels were a choke point." He observed, pointing down at the grates. "If we ran they would have overtaken us on open ground. Can't outrun a horde, had to plug the source." He kicked the metal grates keeping the creatures underground. "Good enough?"

He wasn't the best at reading emotional body language, at least not when it came to this, but he thought that the medic seemed uncomfortable. "Oh, well that made sense. I'm sorry I asked." He went quiet again.

Chase shrugged again. "Does no harm to ask." He said, confused again at this strange surface person behavior. He looked back to the grate, and then up to the column of hot gas and vapor rising into the atmosphere. "The Shroud, where it's coming from, never thought I'd see this. Any idea what's down there." He gestured down the hole.

Tony was walking the perimeter of the concrete platform where the grates were set, before he kneeled down and inspected something, flicking off his IR scopes and shining a flashlight on the ground. "Got something." He called, Chase going over. He turned off the IR as well, returning to the naturally visible spectrum. There was a logo there stamped onto the metal, concentric circles with three bars through them.

"Vault Tec." Tony said, like it was a curse. "There must be a Vault down there."

Chase had read about some of the company's actions in his rather slim history education after joining the military. A company responsible for saving human civilization with their Vault system, but also reviled for the often inhuman experiments they conducted on the trapped population, preserving the human race on the continent by as much accident as design.

"Why do this? Some kind of accident?" He wondered aloud.

"Poison an entire city, cut off all communications, keep a population trapped someplace isolated and resource deprived." Sawbones sneered. "I don't know the reason, but it sounds exactly like one of Vault Tec's insane social experiments."

"What could they possibly hope to gain?" Chase said dubiously.

"What could they possible hope to gain by filling a Vault with one man and nine hundred ninety nine women?" The medic countered.

Chase took a long moment to think of all the implications of that. "Point." He admitted eventually. He looked back down the hole. "If there's a Vault down there, and we can find it, then we might be able to shut this thing down."

"It's possible." Royce admitted. "If we can figure out how."

Five Card chuckled. "If it's been built, I can break it." He promised.

Ignoring the banter, Chase knelt by one of the dead ghosts, looking at the twin bladed weapon strapped onto its forearm. "Has anyone ever seen a weapon like this?" He asked, the others coming to look.

"The Legion likes bladed weapons." Royce pointed out.

Tony knelt by the body, picking up the arm to look at the claws. "I've never seen the Legion making something like this, they prefer short swords, machetes. This kind of thing interferes with the ability to use your hands, it's totally counter to the Legion's trained fighting style." He examined it some more. "No, this wasn't made for a trained soldier, it's fixed on the arm, meant to supplement the slashing attacks ghouls make by instinct, someone made this specially to put on a feral ghoul."

"Who though?" Royce asked aloud. "Some other ghouls were probably in there, shot at us with lasers remember? I think the bodies fell back down the pit though, I can't find any laser guns."

Sawbones nodded. "Ferals don't attack other ghouls except in self-defense, it's possible someone could be trying to arm them. But I can't speculate as to why."

"Doesn't matter." Chase decided, standing up. "What matters is finding that Vault down there, and ending the Shroud. There must be some entrance around here somewhere." He said, face a mask of determination. "So let's get looking before they find some other way to come up and get at us."

===Author's Note===

The plot in Bullhead thickens, and the Legion is facing a problem it can't solve by stabbing it to death. It looks like everyone is out of their element right now.


	14. Echoes of the Tomb

They continued their search, knowing that the Vault they searched for had to be relatively close by, it was right beneath their feet after all, so the entrance couldn't be far if it followed anything near the semi-standardized designs the Vaults used. This was of course assuming that the entrance was not hidden like some of them were, underground or behind a manhole cover or something equally troublesome.

"Are you sure we should keep looking today?" Royce piped up after the first hour and a half of fruitless searching.

"We have to, we might not find our way back here." Chase countered simply. He was close, so very close to doing something nobody underground had dreamed they could actually do. He couldn't turn back now, he had to see this done. "We need to shut down whatever machine down there is doing this, or else the Army won't be able to use this city to run supplies, do you think they could run truck convoys through here with it in place?"

Royce didn't answer, just shouldered his rifle and kept looking. Chase knew they were pushing it, he normally wouldn't stay out this long especially after riling up the ghosts like he just had, but he couldn't turn back, not after everything they had seen. It was another hour of aimless searching that they found a sign indicating the direction to the Vault entrance and followed it. As it turned out the entrance wasn't hidden and soon the cogwheel shape of the Vault door faded in through the fog before them, recessed down into the ground at the bottom of a concrete ramp. The numbers in the center of the door read '31' in faded yellow paint.

"Vault 31." Tony noted as they reached it.

"Heard of it?" Chase asked.

"No, we don't have any data on where the Vaults are located, found a few in my time but none of tem have information on where any of the others are."

He shook his head. "Pity, sounds like they're useful. Usually."

"As far as I can speculate the only location with full knowledge of all the Vault locations would be the Vault Tec headquarters in Washington D.C. but nobody even knows if the city is still there. And even then that location is only rumored." Tony said with a shrug.

"Maybe somebody found it." Royce suggested as Chase examined the control panel for the door. "Would be helpful to know."

"You're an eternal optimist, you know that?" Tony remarked as Chase pulled the opening lever.

Thankfully the door began to creak and grind open, it didn't seem to be secured from the inside. "Panel's damaged, I think someone broke the security systems at some point. Scavengers probably." He speculated. They advanced into the dark entry corridor, the Shroud seeping in behind them as emergency lighting flickered to life around the room.

"Someone will have heard that." Five Card said as the echoes of grinding metal died out. "Don't get complacent."

They moved inside quickly, throwing the lever to close the door behind them, flashing and spinning warning lights lighting up the room in orange strobes as it ground shut, the wispy traces of the Shroud being visibly pulled away into the ventilation system as it scrubbed the atmosphere. Sawbones pulled up his own Pipboy and fiddled with the arm mounted computer. "Air is breathable, radiation levels are low, whatever's being pumped outside the interior seems protected."

Chase nodded, pulling his helmet off and wiping his sweaty face with his neck wrap. "We should look for terminals, notes, anything. If we can figure out what they were doing here then we can find out how to put an end to it." The group nodded, advancing slowly on the door ahead of them, which slid up at the push of a button. No horde of monsters charging, no shriek of alarm.

"We should look for science labs, security stations, and the Overseer's office." Tony advised. "Directions should be marked, we probably won't find much in residential blocks or social areas, but you never know."

They advanced through the corridors at a brisk pace, running through their well drilled sweep and clear maneuvers, checking the rooms as they passed them with a quick sweep of gun barrels before moving on.

"This place is remarkably well preserved." Royce commented. Indeed it seemed like the Vault had been neglected, but it wasn't the wrecked husks that some of them were, only about half of the lighting strips were fully working and some doors were jammed, but it was mostly intact.

"Vault Tec knew how to build things to last, even if they were a bunch of sadistic freaks." Tony grumbled quietly.

Royce turned the corner of a T intersection and cursed. "Contact." He grunted as his R99 bucked in his hands, putting two rounds into a ghost that was standing in the hallway. In the distance they heard movement, but it wasn't the keening call of a horde, but the hissing and pitter-patter of individual feet.

"They're all broken up, no cohesion." Tony noted, readying his own bullpup rifle. "We can take them as they come."

He proved to be correct, they were all spread out across the facility, rather than grouped together into a horde. They came in twos and threes and were easy prey to the armed group, quick barrages of gunfire taking them down in a long running battle, each skirmish lasting only a few seconds as each group of creatures lurched into the open before the waiting guns.

"Science Lab, down those stairs." Chase pointed out, sending a ghost tumbling down them in a splatter of blood as it turned the corner and wasted a few seconds to make its hissing cry at them.

He heard the rapid chatter of Five Card's LMG ripping into the creatures behind them as he moved quickly downstairs, soon finding the door to the labs, a console next to it on the wall. "It's locked!" He cursed as the rest took up defensive positions around him. "Tony, can you crack that?"

"I'll give it a go." He answered, pulling out the rotating keyboard and working to subvert the security system. "Tough system, but I can get in." He promised, typing at the keys and cursing softly to himself as he worked, muttering passcodes under his breath, spelling out similar words.

Chase turned and snapped up his rifle, putting two rounds into a ghost that turned the corner from the other direction. "Tony, I do not mean to be pushy but,"

"Working on it." The man said in a slightly trembling voice.

Five Card walked down the stairs, holding off a few more with a long burst. "Tony!" He shouted.

"It ends with 'ing' I'm sure of it!" The man cursed. "Walking… Boating… oh you're kidding me, door's open!" He said cheerily as the door slid open with a hiss and they quickly piled through it, bustling the proud hacker through the entry way in his moment of triumph before they closed and locked it behind them, leaving the few surviving creatures outside to hiss and scratch impotently at the metal.

The threat, for the moment, dealt with, they turned to examine the facility they now took shelter in. Old lights flickered and sparked into life, revealing more concrete corridors, but this time mercifully devoid of hungry mutants. "We need to find what they were doing down here." Chase said, walking off down the corridors, making sure they were all clear. They passed a few rooms filled with defunct machinery and broken terminals, nothing that made sense to Chase.

"Biological research, perhaps." Sawbones noted as he looked at some of the broken machines.

"I've got something over here." They heard Tony say, the group walking over to where the man crouched. "Human remains, old." He said, looking over a scattered pile of bones.

The medic nodded as he examined them. "Decades old I'd say, probably one of the original Vault residents here."

"How did he die?" Royce asked in his quiet voice.

"Does it matter?" Five Card countered with a grunt, making Royce tap his foot in annoyance.

Sawbones looked over the bones where they lay scattered, picking one up. "The bones are scattered about, and there are bite marks on them. I can't say what killed him but some kind of predator devoured the remains."

"Ghouls maybe?" Five Card offered. "There are plenty of them around."

Royce shook his head. "The door was locked, how could they get in? Unless they locked the doors after sometime got inside."

"I can't offer any answers." The medic said with a sigh, examining the bone he held. "I don't know of any creature that would leave a bite pattern like this."

"Let me see." Chase asked, taking the proffered bone and examining it, turning it around in his hands and looking at the old scratches and nicks where sharp teeth gnawed on the bones.

"Do you know something that makes a bite like that?" Tony asked.

Chase nodded, tapping the bone in the palm of his hand. "Yeah, I do." He said, dropping it back in the pile.

There was a long moment. "And?" Five Card asked. "Aren't you going to share?"

Chase blinked. "Oh, I mean, I do, I leave bite marks like that." There was a moment of uncomfortable realization that went around the room. "At least, anyone like me would leave a bite like that, anybody in Bullhead."

"So… your people broke in and ate the Vault residents?" Royce asked, slightly nervous sounding.

"Broke in or…" Sawbones wondered aloud. "Or maybe broke out? This equipment looks like it's for biological research, genetic manipulation."

Chase shrugged. "We need to keep looking. The answer's here somewhere, we'll find it." He said with certainty, before heading off further down the hall.

XXXXX

They continued deeper into the facility, passing more defunct laboratories and scenes of old death, scattered bones, bullet craters in the walls, bloodstains so ancient and faded they were almost impossible to see. They passed holding cells, plexiglas walled cubes of varying sized with air holes drilled in the sides. Finally they saw the flickering green light of a terminal still operable, still running after all these years. Tony took a few minutes to crack the security before Chase eagerly went to read the data on it, but Sawbones spoke up.

"If I may, I have a cursory education in medical research, if this terminal contains that kind of information I think I would have the best chance of understanding it, no offense."

Chase wavered for a moment before wordlessly offering up the seat, the others standing behind the medic as he started paging through the information preserved on the old machine.

"We're in luck, this is the head researcher's terminal." He said with a nod, making Chase's little ember of hope burn a bit brighter. There were answers here, answers to questions nobody even thought to ask because of how lost the truth was, nobody in the Metro really knew where they had all come from, only an apocryphal story about their ancestors being somewhere else before climbing out into the wider world, at least the world of Bullhead.

"I was correct, they were conducting genetic and biological research here." Sawbones continued. "Personal emails, requests for more security, more… test subjects." Everyone but Chase shuffled a bit uncomfortably. "They were experimenting on the Vault population, FEV strain mutation, controlled evolution. They… Chase, they created your ancestors here, in this lab. It was a genetic engineering experiment, your mutations are artificial."

He looked around, seeing the holding cells, the security checkpoints. "I always thought we were just… normal, that everyone was like us." He said quietly. "I was surprised when the doctor at McCarran told me I was… different. So someone made us? Cooked us up here in this lab." He thought about that as he looked around.

"There's more here." Sawbones continued as he started paging through more information. "There's a personal log, progress reports. It seems the personnel here referred to the test subjects as 'Stalkers', that's you I guess."

"Good a name as any." Chase shrugged. "Stalker…" It had a strange ring to it, he couldn't explain why.

The medic nodded before he continued reading. "They were experimenting on the Vault population with gene therapy, FEV strains, using them as test subjects and… breeding stock." His lip curled as he read. "They were trying to improve certain specific traits, creating a mostly human mutant strain with certain tweaked biological traits. Better visual acuity in low light, modified digestive system to allow raw and rotten meat to be eaten without getting sick. There are some negative traits that got bred in as well it seems, grey hair cropping up as a dominant trait though that seems benign, slight sensitivity to bright light, um… increased reproductive drive." Royce and Five Card shuffled a bit, glancing at Chase, who shrugged. "Though they seemed to have been excited about the last one, it says here that it might have had practical applications, but it doesn't say anything more about what they are."

"There was a training program for the Stalkers, taught to read, write, speak, they were treated like… animals." He glanced to Chase, who motioned for him to continue. "Experimented upon, trained for certain tasks, bred like dogs over successive generations, kept in kennels." He shook his head sadly. "The last entry here is an emergency alarm issued over a century and a half ago, it says the specimens broke containment and were attacking people, and the doors were locked down, that's it."

Chase's fingers were curled around the metal rim of the chair the medic sat in, his normally impassive face betraying some of the disgust he felt at what they learned here. "Animals…" He shook his head. "Bred in captivity, trained like beasts, we broke loose and killed our own creators. After that… this Vault must connect to the Metro somehow, they locked the doors so we must have broken out and escaped into the underground, been there ever since."

Royce nodded. "It does explain why the people here never tried to leave, they never knew of the outside world, they went from being trapped in these cells to being trapped underground by the Shroud. Speaking of, does it mention the Shroud anywhere in there? Or why someone would do… this?"

Sawbones shook his head. "There's an oblique reference to another research division here, but nothing specific. And there's no explanation for why this project was undertaken, we know what they were trying to create, did create, but not why." He shrugged before standing from the machine.

Chase looked around, unsatisfied. Perhaps there are answers in the Overseer's office." He suggested, turning back towards the door. "We should go there, see what there is to find."

"Is that wise?" Tony asked, making Chase turn. "This place is crawling with feral ghouls and who knows what else, is that a risk we really need to take?"

"There may be more security that requires the Overseer's authorization to override." He reasoned, voice back to its usual unemotional, stoic tone. "Or other valuable information, we have to investigate it."

"If you think that's best." Tony relented after a moment. Chase simply nodded, marching back towards the locked door with his team in tow.

XXXXX

They blasted the ghouls at the door to ribbons as soon as it opened and quickly moved out into the corridor. They had reasoned that if there were any more sentient ghouls in the Vault they would likely know about them now and would be looking for the intruders, so they moved quickly and professionally through the concrete halls as they progressed towards the Overseer's office overlooking the main hall, leaving a trail of spent brass and emaciated bodies in their wake. They moved in the drilled pattern they all knew by heart, covering each other as they advanced, sectioning off rooms, clearing rooms and corridors that branched off from their own, the occasional bark of gunfire and a grunted 'clear' signaling another creature dispatched.

Chase was out in front, face set in a determined mask as hard as iron. He was close to finding the answers behind his people's existence, his existence. He had never wondered about such things before, but now that the answer was being dangled in front of him he burned to know why he was made the way he was, why him and everyone before him had lived out their lives in a claustrophobic underground with barely enough resources to eke out an existence. He saw the sign pointing up the stairs to the Overseer's office and climbed them quickly, taking them two at a time.

"Chase slow down!" Royce called, he ignored the marksman and turned the corner to the door, punching the button to open it. There was the sound of gunfire and shouting behind him, a chorus of inhuman voices shrieking in anger as a skirmish erupted behind him, the door opening onto the office that contained the answers he sought.

"Chase!" Royce shouted again, making the Stalker turn in place, before he saw the flicker of movement as a clawed hand reached out and grabbed him by the coat, dragging him in through the door and sending him stumbling as his rifle was ripped from his hands. He caught his balance, looking up to see his attacker. It was a ghoul without a doubt, but this one was clad in heavy metal armor head to toe, the only indication of the creature within was the mouth, styled in the form of some predatory animal and rimmed with wicked metal teeth. The gauntlets were sharpened into deadly claws that shone in the light as the armored creature let out a hissing, keening battle cry and closed the door behind it.

Chase went for his magnum but the armored ghoul jumped at him quickly, drawing a fat bladed weapon of some kind and swinging at his head. He ducked, going for his own knife. It was a long bladed bowie knife, with a knuckle duster hilt and wicked serrations along the back of the blade, bringing it up to clash with the larger weapon the ghoul used. It was some kind of flat board of dark wood, with numerous sharpened metal teeth set in a razor blade like pattern across the edge, something like that would leave a horrible, tearing wound.

Chase grunted as he fired point blank, the magnum round denting the creature's armor and making it stagger, but it just hissed again and launched forward, driving him back with its armored momentum and biting at his face. He pulled back, eyes wide with panic as the steel jaws snapped shut just in front of his nose, tumbling as he was pushed back against the Overseer's desk. On some level he picked up a pattern in the hissing, a language he couldn't speak, but he couldn't hear anything more.

He pivoted in place, using a technique taught during the M-SOC training, using the creature's weight to heave and send it toppling over the desk. He pulled up his magnum again to finish it off, but was greeted with the barrel of a laser pistol and a blinding flash as the crimson lance burned into his chest, making a glowing crater on his body armor that sent him staggering. The armored ghoul leaped over the desk and knocked him to the ground, straddling him where he lay. The creature disdained the use of its sword, raising its gauntlet in a clawed shape, as if to plunge it down into him while gloating in whatever language it spoke.

Neither of them had noticed the sound of the door opening, or of the footsteps. Chase watched as if in slow motion as Tony charged into his frame of vision, swinging a simple, straight bladed machete. The weapon connected, finding a chink in the ghoul's plate armor and severing its hand in an arc of blood. The creature howled in pain and Chase reached for his back, pulling out his handmade shotgun and jamming the twin barrels into the ghoul's open mouth, choking its scream of pain. He pulled the trigger, blasting its head to a red ruin, before gasping tiredly and slumping the dead weight of the armored figure onto the floor beside him.

"Next time," Tony said, slightly out of breath. "We tell you to wait for us, fucking listen." He admonished, offering a hand.

Chase, face flushed with the adrenaline rush of combat, and shame for his failure, took it and let the man pull him to his feet. "Is everyone alright?" He asked quietly.

"We're fine." Tony assured him. "Some ghouls jumped us right as you reached the door, probably an ambush but we burned through them. I'm assuming that was the ringleader, never seen armor like that before."

Chase glanced at the dead ghoul as the rest of the team filed into the room. "Hall is secure, I don't hear anything else out there." Royce offered, giving Chase a sad look the Stalker couldn't quite meet.

"Let's… just see what's on this computer." Chase said haltingly, walking over to the circular window overlooking the main hall, not feeling like looking his teammates in the eyes right now.

XXXXX

While Sawbones and Royce inspected the dead armored ghoul, Five Card keeping watch on the door with his LMG, Tony hacked into the Overseer's terminal, cracking the defenses with his usual skill.

"You're very good at this." Chase observed as the man cut his way through the computer's defenses like a surgeon.

"I've had a lot of practice, computers, locks, anything people want me to stay out of I've got a knack for getting into. There we are." He opened it up, Chase leaning in as they began reading. A lot of it wasn't very useful, routine log entries, personal emails, it took a while to get to the really interesting and important things.

"Here, this write-up describes the Shroud." Tony said, the rest gathering around curiously as he began to read. "It's some kind of defensive mechanism, a city wide security precaution they were testing here. Suck in water from the Colorado River, create a suspension of caustic chemicals, convert it to steam with waste heat from the reactor and pump it into the atmosphere, basically laces the entire city with tear gas fog. The dip in the terrain and all the buildings keeps it from dissipating faster than the system pumps it out. The idea is to blind and disorient any unauthorized personnel so they can be captured."

"It's not meant to be lethal?" Sawbones asked, looking at the listed compounds used in the gas.

"Blind, unable to breath and covered in chemical burns." Chase pointed out. "In that state on the surface you're as good as dead from the ghouls, they probably just ignore the pain, or the background radiation heals them enough for them to recover from the effects faster than it hurts them." He shrugged, it made sense enough to him. "Does it say why they activated it? Or why they did what they did here?"

"Looking." Tony responded, paging through more of the report. "This Vault was meant to be an experiment in expanded, long term underground living. The Shroud was activated after the war to keep out scavengers and dangerous creatures, and the Vault was built here because of the extensive Metro and other tunnels down here. The Vault was connected with those tunnels so instead of going up to the surface, the plan was to resettle underground with the Shroud active as a defense mechanism."

Royce nodded. "That would be a very defensible position, a Vault's resources could sustain people down here, underground bunkers, tear gas on the surface, presumably hazard suits for security personnel to go up and patrol. Anyone who came into the city would be disabled by the Shroud and offer no resistance, only now it's the ghouls that find you rather than security guards. What about the Stalkers?" He asked cautiously.

Tony kept reading. "Entirely different project, but ordered by the same authority it seems. There is email correspondence here between the Overseer and someone… on the Poseidon Oil Rig."

"Enclave." Five Card grunted from the door. "Sounds like some of the mad science shit they get up to."

Tony nodded dryly. "It looks like the project was to create a stable strain of mutant human to serve as shock troopers for the Enclave's plan to retake the continental United States."

"That makes sense given the mutation affects from what I saw in the research notes." Sawbones commented. "Naturally better vision at night, ability to survive on food that would make others sick, an overactive libido to promote fast population growth to replace losses, some kind of communal cooperative instinct to promote unit cohesion. There were problems though, sensitivity to bright or sudden light, difficulty stomaching vegetarian diets, fast reproduction could lead to unsustainable populations, and other problems."

Tony nodded. "Sounds about right, the correspondence was becoming strained, increasing problems were cropping up and the Stalker population was getting unruly, they were having trouble enforcing obedience in their would be soldiers. The Vault population was getting uppity as more people kept vanishing into the labs to be used as test subjects or breeding stock to try and add genetic diversity to the small population."

Chase nodded. "Makes sense, inbreeding is something we worry about a lot down here, there aren't that many of us compared to places like the Mojave, nobody in or out, after a century or so almost everyone is related to almost everyone else somehow."

"Eventually there was a riot of some kind and power was disrupted, the Stalkers broke containment and started killing the research staff and then escaped out into the Metro, they left the Shroud up to contain them and then the population here seems to have destroyed itself, or tried to flee and ran out into the Shroud. The last message is to keep the Stalkers contained to the city until the Enclave might come collect them, which they never did."

All eyes turned to Chase. "So, we were an experiment. An attempt to create soldiers, they made us to fight their battles for them." He wasn't sure what to feel, his normally even, calm voice fluctuated but kept its calm tempo.

"Sounds right." Royce offered. "Deathclaws, super mutants, they've tried to engineer super soldiers before, eventually they just settled on regular humans in power armor instead."

Chase shook his head. Still trying to work all of this through. "The Shroud, can we shut it down?"

Tony nodded, pulling up another program and looking at the blinking text on the screen. "It's all controlled from here." Chase looked at the screen, seeing the dialogue. [DEACTIVATE NONLETHAL AREA DENIAL SYSTEM Y/N?] "Shall I?" He asked, reaching for the keyboard.

"No!" Chase snapped, grabbing his hand, making him jump. "I mean, sorry." He shook his head, looking at the screen again. Slowly, hand trembling ever so slightly, he reached out and pressed the enter key.

[SYSTEM DEACTIVATING] flashed on the screen.

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "It's done, it's over." He said quietly.

"Well, it will take some time for the low winds in the area to blow the Shroud away." Sawbones pointed out. "But it will dissipate in time, this is… momentous."

"You have no idea." Chase nodded. "Tony, are there any more ghouls in the Vault?"

He checked, shaking his head. "Security systems show all clear, nothing moving on any security camera, it looks like that was the last of them."

Chase nodded slowly, breathing a shaky breath. "Okay, okay. Okay we're done then, everyone… everyone get some rest, this place is still mostly intact so let's camp up here, I need a rest."

"Just one question, who was that?" Royce asked, looking at the dead ghoul, his stylized helmet blasted to shrapnel.

"No idea, some kind of cultist maybe." Tony shrugged. "In any case he's dead now, and there are none left, we're safe here for the moment."

Chase nodded as he left the room, heading down towards the main hall. Safe, something in short supply in Bullhead, would it become more common now? He was full of turmoil right now, kept close in check. The revelations about his people, the reasons for their creation and why they lived like they did, the futility of it all galled him. But at the same time he felt glad to know it, and had done something wonderful by freeing their city of the Shroud. Still trying to reconcile his emotions he went off to the café to scrounge up something to eat.

===Author's Note===

I think my fingers are bleeding, I've never written a chapter this fast but I my muse was with me. And it helped me write a segment about near death experiences, horrific monsters and inhuman experiments conducted upon the innocent for no ultimate purpose. Maybe I should have a long talk with my muse about that.


	15. Tipping Points

The jukebox in the café was still intact and soon they were relaxing to the comforting sounds of the classics wafting over the air. The bodies had been dragged out of sight, and were it not for the thick layer of dust that covered everything they might have been back in the Vault when it still contained people. He could almost picture it, all the people in their jumpsuits talking and laughing or dancing to the music, the PA announcing some social event as they went about their happy little lives. Meanwhile two floors below them his ancestors squatted naked in their kennels as men without a conscience between them twisted their bodies to make killing machines with the minds of loyal hounds. Well, kick a dog enough and they'll bite even the hand that feeds. And then presumably eat the person attached to it. The thought didn't get so much as a chuckle out of Chase as he sat in the corner booth, a Nuka Cola and an old preserved meal on the table.

He was feeling a little melancholy, and he wasn't used to that. Sure bad things had happened to him before, but he had always been able to move on from them. Now though he felt like he was stuck in a mess he didn't know how to deal with. He wasn't used to dealing with the feelings of others like this, he could sense their unease around him but didn't know what to do about it or how to make things right. He had never had the luxury of confiding in someone else before, of being open with them. His past didn't permit that. For years he had been a lone scavenger on the surface, relying on his own abilities and with no thoughts but his own to worry about. Before that he hadn't had been in a position that allowed much emotional connection with anyone. Now though he had to rely on these people to help keep himself alive, and he did like them in a way, but he didn't know how to deal with them.

"Cap for your thoughts?" Royce asked as he sat down, opening his own Cola bottle.

"What?" Chase asked, confused as he snapped out of his reverie.

"Just an expression." The marksman assured him. "You're sitting alone and brooding, I thought I'd come see what's on your mind."

"Just thinking about everything I've learned here." He said, shifting a bit and crossing his arms, Royce nodding.

"It's not every day you find out the origin of your civilization. Do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. "Not really."

Royce nodded, sipping his cola thoughtfully. "You seemed a little shaken up, not exactly happy about what you saw? I can't blame you after what it must have felt like to learn all of this."

"It's… It's complicated." Chase said after a moment, shifting his bottle between his hands. "I'm not used to talking about things like this." He said with a hint of apology.

Royce nodded. "Okay, well why don't you just tell me what it made you feel." He suggested.

Chase thought about it. "I felt upset, I mean, life is never easy down here but it's still living, we carved a life out of barren rock and held onto it. But… finding out we started like this, it makes this place seem… small and sad." He said haltingly.

Royce nodded. "It's not exactly a happy history, but still there's something to be proud of right? You went from being little more than animals in cages to a functioning complex society in a few decades. Others might have destroyed themselves but your ancestors built a home for themselves rather than fight with each other."

Chase shrugged. "I suppose so. I just… An experiment." He admitted with a sigh. "A failed experiment, one of many options being considered, ultimately written off and just left to rot in this place because nobody cared what happened to us. They brought us into the world through horrible methods, so we could fight to make them stronger, then just threw us away when we were more trouble than we were worth." His hands gripped the bottle angrily. "Is that all we are? A lab accident that should never have lived that was allowed to keep struggling to survive when nobody cared enough to even come looking? Kept penned up here by poison gas because maybe, someday, someone might come to collect us if the mood struck? Like everything we've built is just a waiting game until they show up?"

Royce was watching him carefully, looking very thoughtful. "You feel like there was no point to your people coming into this world, like you were given life for no good reason?" He asked, and after a moment Chase nodded. Royce gave it some more thought before continuing. "Maybe your people weren't created as part of some grand design, but does that really matter? Does it really matter how someone is given life? I think not, that it doesn't matter how anyone is given the gift of life, it's what we do with it once we have it that matters. Your ancestors were created to kill, bred in a laboratory, no different than the Nightstalkers or the Cazadores or the Deathclaws. But when you broke free you built a civilization, you worked together, you made something worthwhile. However your people came to be, you made something of your lives. You proved those people wrong, they thought there was no worth in your lives, you made sure that wasn't the case."

They sat in silence for a while, drinking together as soft music played. Finally Chase broke the silence. "I just feel like there's something missing. We were made the way we are on accident and then thrown away because the people who created us didn't have a use for us, and they never came back to check because they didn't care if we lived or died."

Royce nodded again, thinking for a bit. "Are we talking about your people as a whole, or someone in particular?"

Chase shifted uncomfortably, crossing his arms again.

Royce gave him a warm, gently insistent smile. "You can talk to me, just say whatever you feel like."

It was a little while before he talked. "I feel that the situation with my people's history somewhat reflects my own history. I was conceived on accident by people who couldn't support me, given away because I wasn't worth keeping, neither of them ever came to check up on me or cared if I was still alive, not once. I don't miss it, not really, but sometimes it feels like there's something not there. My life was given to me by accident and the people who granted me life gave me away and never thought about me again. It's not like I want to have some tearful reunion with them but sometimes it's hard knowing that from before I even existed, nobody ever cared about whether I lived or died."

Royce nodded, looking hurt. "I care about you." He said in his quiet voice. "We care about you." He indicated the others where they sat and talked across the room. "You may not have had the most auspicious life before now, but you're alive and you're a good person and I'm glad to know you. You're not always the easiest to get along with but I do consider you a friend, and I would be very sad if something were to happen to you."

Chase looked up at him, his stoic mask breaking as a hesitant, unsure smile twitched at his mouth for a few moments. "Thank you." He said quietly.

Royce nodded cheerily. "Of course. Hey, why don't you come and join the rest of us, it'll be good for you. Everyone is a little on edge after the fight, it doesn't do for you to be brooding along, come on." He said happily.

Chase sighed, finding himself unable to say no, before he rose and followed his companion over to the others, sitting down with them as they talked and eventually joining in. It was a new feeling, not a bad one, he quite liked this feeling. Surface people were strange, but he was also strange, so maybe they could get along after all.

XXXXX

It had been a nice talk, the lot of them sitting around and trading stories and anecdotes over food and drink, letting go of the tension they all had been carrying after the long day of exploration and fighting. He had tried his best to explain his earlier actions, say he was sorry for how he had acted and that he wasn't used to this yet, only for Five Card to slap him hard on the back and tell him not to worry about it while he spluttered and coughed up his drink.

Through it all Royce had sat in mostly silent pride, giving him little nods of reassurance as he carefully opened up over dinner, answering a few questions and discussing what the future of Bullhead might be without the Shroud hanging over them all anymore. Of course the ghouls on the surface would still be a major issue, as was the radiation pockets, but without the Shroud cutting radio communications and incapacitating people, soon hazard equipment wouldn't even be needed to visit the surface so long as you were careful. It was going to revolutionize their culture, he only hoped it would end well for his people, finally able to enter the light of day for the first time in their troubled history.

Eventually dinner had ended and they wandered off, many going to hit the showers after the water was found to be clean and safe, sweating inside airtight body armor was never a pleasant affair. They had each staked out living quarters nearby each other, the old rooms still quite comfortable with most of the amenities still intact. Chase had been wandering the halls thinking to himself while the others all went off doing their own thing.

He had never really considered himself a people person, he had never cared about that before. He had done what people asked of him, done his job and gotten paid, that was always the beginning and end of it. He was reliable, had a good reputation, dealt fairly with people and that was all he had cared about. Now he was entering into uncharted territory, interpersonal relationships, friendships, worrying about people's feelings. At the same time he was on the receiving end of new things as well, Royce had gone out of his way to do something truly nice to him. He had never been on the receiving end of that kind of attention, sure people had done good things for him but always expected something back. Handsome payment for a job well done, praise for good work, that kind of thing. He wasn't used to someone going out of their way just to be nice to him for its own sake, but he had quite enjoyed it. Eventually he made up his mind to try and emulate that, Royce had done something nice for him expecting nothing in return, so he should try to do the same. Return the favor, as the saying went.

Giving himself a mental pep talk, he found his way to Royce's room, which was just next door to the one he had chosen for himself and rang the buzzer. A moment later the door swished open.

"Oh, hello Chase." Royce said with his usual quiet smile. "Doing alright?"

He nodded. "Yes, quite well, can I come in?"

The marksman nodded, standing aside so he could come in. "What's up?"

"Just thinking about our talk earlier." He said, leaning against the wall as Royce got a bottle of cola. He seemed to like the stuff and they were currently sitting on a stockpile, so he seemed to be taking what he could get. "It meant a lot to me, I'm not used to people taking an interest in my problems like that."

The sniper smiled and nodded. "Hey, what I'm here for, right? I don't like seeing people hurting and you looked like you needed a friend so I did what felt right, I happen to consider you a friend."

Chase nodded. "Well I appreciated it, and wanted to say thank you, and maybe do something nice for you, if you wanted."

The sniper held up a hand, chuckling. "It's fine Chase, I'm glad you liked talking. But really, you don't have to do anything for me, acts of friendship don't require a reward."

He nodded. "Still, you were kind to me when you had no reason to be, and it meant a lot to me and I wanted to say I was thankful. Uh, you'll have to forgive me I'm not very used to doing this kind of thing. Usually people come to me with things not the other way around."

Royce nodded. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I appreciate the thought. So what did you have on your mind?" He asked as he went to take a drink.

Feeling emboldened by his companion's calm reassurance, he nodded and asked. "Do you want to have sex?"

Royce choked and spluttered on the Nuka Cola, eyes bugging out of his head as he half coughed, half sneezed at the same time, spilling his drink all over his shirt. Chase shifted uncomfortably, making halting motions with his hands, unsure of what to do again, having gone from reasonably confident to out of his element again in five seconds. Eventually Royce stopped coughing enough to splutter out some words. "What? No! I don't." He coughed again, trying to catch his breath.

"Oh, okay then." Chase nodded, going for the door. "I'm sorry to have bothered you." He apologized quickly before ducking out, leaving Royce to catch his breath as he went back to his room, slightly frustrated and wondering what he'd done wrong.

XXXXX

The buzzer on Chase's room sounded a few minutes later as he lay in bed, reading on his Pipboy, going over the research notes and correspondence he had downloaded from the terminals they had found. He set it down, going up to open the door. "Oh, Royce. What's up?" He asked, surprised to see the young man, after their last conversation.

The marksman gave him a nervous smile. "Uh, can we talk?" He asked haltingly.

Chase nodded and let him in. "What do you want to talk about?"

Royce started pacing a bit. "Well, about, you know, what you said before."

"What about it?" He asked, still not sure where this was going. Had he changed his mind? That was unlikely given his rather dramatic reaction.

Royce swung his arms a bit. "I mean why did you offer that? It seemed very… sudden, and I wasn't expecting that kind of offer."

Chase shrugged. "Like I said, I wanted to do something nice for you."

Royce shifted a bit. "But why did you offer, you know, that?"

Another shrug. "Well you said before your girlfriend broke up with you, and you didn't want to pay for one at the casino or the bar, so I thought you might be missing that and since you said you liked me I thought I'd offer some company. Did I upset you?"

Royce calmed down a little, leaning against the wall. "No, you didn't upset me, I'm not offended or anything. Just surprised is all. I'm not really interested in that kind of thing, I don't like sleeping around, or with guys. Not that I'm judging it's just not 'me' I guess." He shrugged. "I suppose this is another one of those cultural things?" He asked.

Chase nodded after a bit. "I suppose. 'Lucky to be alive' is as good a reason as any, and one I'm very familiar with. Surviving a close call or a tough fight makes a lot of people want to celebrate, feel alive after and have some fun, I've been there a lot. From both sides."

"What do you mean, both sides?" The sniper asked curiously.

"Oh, I mean that I've wanted that after surviving close calls, and been the one people sought out when they had close calls, plenty of times. I guess I was just falling back on what I knew."

Royce still seemed confused. "Plenty of times? Sounds like you're uh, prolific." He chuckled, going red.

"It was a living." Chase shrugged.

"Oh." Royce said when it clicked for him what Chase meant. "Do you, want to talk about it?"

Chase shrugged. "Not much to talk about I suppose. I worked in the machine shop where I was being raised, that lasted for a good long time, many years. Not sure how many, never cared to count, but I was a young man when that ended. The man who raised me got sick and eventually died, and I couldn't run the shop by myself. So I emptied the cash register and skipped town. Some people tried to stop me, wanted to grab the money themselves, but I had his old revolver so I talked them down." He gestured to the magnum on the bedside table.

"After that I bought passage on a train headed to a station called Clearwater, set up a new life there. The money from the store lasted a while, but I needed work. My technical skills weren't good enough to compete with the local workshop and they weren't interested in another worker, so I took a job in a bar working for a guy called Henry. I waited tables for a while but the brothel paid better so I started doing that instead." He shrugged. "That lasted a good few years but I didn't want to do that forever so I had a plan for a career change. Eventually I saved up enough money to buy my hazard gear, and I already had a gun, so I started doing the surface scavenger gig, did that until I came to join the army."

Royce looked sad, frowning a little at him. "I'm sorry, that must have been very difficult."

Chase waved a hand dismissively. "Don't be, I don't regret it. It put food on the table and paid well enough for me to retire from that line of work and move on to something that paid better. If I hadn't done that I would still be waiting tables in the bar and we would never have met. It wasn't the easiest job but I got used to it, and Henry was a good boss. Paid well and he had a good bouncer, nobody hurt any of his employees for any reason. I'm glad I got out of that line of work eventually but only because there were better paying prospects that led me to finding the outside world."

"That's a very pragmatic outlook on life." Royce said, still seeming unsure.

"It's worked for me so far." He conceded. A long quiet moment passed. "So, are we good? I must say I've never gotten that bad a reaction to an offer before." He chuckled.

Royce smirked. "Well, I appreciate it, I suppose. I don't know quite what to think about everything you've said, but whatever happened I'm glad we met in the end. If you want to spend some time together, just talk and be friendly, come and see me anytime."

Chase smiled, genuinely warm for a few moments. "I appreciate that, sorry for making you uncomfortable, this whole culture clash thing is just as confusing for me as it is for you I promise."

They talked a bit more before Royce went back to his room to get some sleep. Chase, for his part, felt quite a bit better about himself, and his friend. Friend, he'd never really had one by this definition before. There were people he was friendly with, people he liked spending time with, people he enjoyed associating with and held in good regard. But a friend who wanted nothing more than to just be friendly and went out of their way to make you feel better? That was something entirely new to him, and like many new things he had discovered recently he quite liked it. That happy thought on his mind he finally got some sleep after a very, very long day.

XXXXX

The rest of the mission in Bullhead passed with relatively little incident. They had a few shootouts with ghouls on the surface but nothing near the intensity of the engagement in the Vault. They didn't go back to the Metro afterwards, sticking to the Vault they had cleared out, using that as their basecamp for the next week of their survey operation, eventually mapping out several promising options. The Shroud was thinning, slowly yes but still thinning, the topmost levels of the foggy cloud being blown away and not replenishing. While it would take some time for it to fully dissipate, the sun would be shining in Bullhead for the first time in two centuries before all too long. Eventually however, it was time for them to leave.

The road out to the extraction point was clear, and devoid of settlement so they pitched camp out in the sticks before continuing on with the rising sun, eventually finding their way to their destination, climbing the crater to behold the sprawling facility laid out before them, taking a long moment to admire the sight. Chase for the first time realized how powerful a nation he had joined up with as he looked out on the technological treasure trove laid out before them, not the least of which were the cyborg hounds and robotic scorpions patrolling the facility. They stayed there for the better part of a day before a humming flying contraption touched down, piloted by a cheery elderly woman and a nervous looking trainee.

They had loaded up some crates of what turned out to be energy based rifles of some kind, before they took off. Flying did not agree with Chase, who spent most of the relatively short flight gripping his seat in white knuckled terror as they were buffeted about by air currents, though in retrospect the view was spectacular and the flight amazingly short before they were touching back down at Nellis, just a short walk away from home as work teams unloaded the weapons from the Vertibird.

"Well that was quite an adventure." Royce chuckled as the team walked back down the road towards Vegas, seeing the familiar and welcome skyline twinkling in the early evening.

"I suppose it was." Chase agreed. "Anyone have any plans? I'm hitting the Strip after I get a shower. Seeing home again was nice but it's good to be back."

"I think that sounds like a plan." Tony said with a smirk. "Try not to get gut punched this time."

They all laughed as Chase scowled, but in the end he smirked as well. "We'll see." The Mojave may have been balanced on a knife edge, but tonight Chase was with his friends and the Strip's pleasures beckoned. Tonight at least, life was good.

XXXXX

Alaric looked over the reports from Bullhead and nodded with satisfaction. He had deployed an Army expedition to wait outside the city and observe the conditions there. Once the Shroud dissipated they were to move in and clear a road through the city, as well as secure Vault 31 as a base from which to keep Bullhead secure. A secondary objective was to establish peaceful relations with the locals as a setup to future diplomatic relations, and possibly the peaceful annexation of the city. While he had no imperialist ambitions like the NCR, he also knew that his borders needed to expand to cover Big MT and control a trade route to the facility, the only way to do that would be to secure Bullhead. Granted that he would be the first contact the locals had with the outside world, and he was prepared to be very generous towards them, he didn't doubt that they would be ultimately successful.

The implications of the Bullhead natives, these Stalkers, was worrying to him however. Another of the Enclave and Vault Tec's horror stories, though this one had a semblance of a happy ending. Still, a city full of genetically engineered cannibal mutants intended as disposable shock troops was hardly a comforting thought. The cultural differences would be hard to reconcile when the Stalkers inevitably set out to explore the world and ran into the people of the wasteland, he had to step in and ensure it was done peacefully and properly. Some social experts from the Followers were trying to hammer out methods of educating the Mojave populace about the Stalkers, both their biology and culture, and a few other Followers had accompanied his troops down to the Bullhead border in order to begin humanitarian assistance on their own time to build goodwill with them. It would be touchy, but doable, and vitally important.

It was fully a week after the M-SOC team had returned and the city was almost safe to enter by all accounts, then would begin the difficult task of clearing a path through the city. Their thorough survey expedition had identified the best course, the one with the fewest derelict hulks of rusted cars blocking the path, though there were still many. For that purpose a number of super mutant workers had been sent, their great strength would make the job much easier in lieu of the construction machinery they didn't have. A number of regular army troopers and another M-SOC team to provide recon was the best he could do. Still against wandering feral ghouls it should be enough, though the possible reports of some kind of ghoul cult in the city was worrying. At the same time said cult seemed based out of Vault 31 and it had been completely cleared out by one team of M-SOC Commandoes, so a few platoons of regular army troopers, another Commando team and a dozen super mutants should be able to handle themselves as soon as the poison cleared.

Ambassador McKinley had not left, but instead chosen to stay within the city limits in an attempt to further diplomatic relations. He had given the man and his staff the old NCR embassy to live and work out of, partially to keep Tycho nearby as his contact to the Ranger old guard, discreetly meeting with him to hammer out the plans for the Ranger repatriation to the Mojave region, and the reestablishing of the Desert Rangers as a police force across the area under their control.

The infrastructure improvements were coming along nicely, with power of some form or another being supplied to all currently occupied towns. The network was thin in places but it was there. Power from Helios One, the Lucky 38 itself, and four vaults working primary and secondary generators at once produced more than enough power to run the Mojave for the meantime. Vault 34 was coming along decently, with the radioactive water now fully drained and cleanup teams removing radioactive buildup steadily, though currently the reactor itself was shut down while repairs to the system were affected. However the gunsmithing facilities were fully intact and the Vault's database full of schematics for weapons of all types. He'd forwarded some options to Boone and his advisors who were currently trying to decide what weapons they would select to be the standard issue for their army.

There was more political wrangling within the Mojave as well, treaties being hammered out between towns, tax systems being agreed upon at great and painful length. Eventually they had put to rest the choice of what they were even calling themselves, finally christening themselves the Mojave Confederation. It was appropriate, a Confederation being a government formed of independent states each linked by treaties to a single central government concerned with all of them, which would eventually establish a unified constitution. It was better than calling it a dictatorship or feudal society which he honestly thought it resembled sometimes, with himself as king and each town a separate barony owing him fealty. Thus far the central government consisted of himself and whoever he decided to put in charge of each issue as it arose, but for now people seemed happy with how it was working out. Now they just had to agree upon a flag.

Things progressed about as smoothly as they could be hoped over the next two weeks. The Shroud in Bullhead dissipated completely and the work crews began the long and grueling task of clearing the rubble and detritus of centuries of neglect off of the roadway, and the Followers made the first shaky and careful contact with the local Stalkers, the first natives starting to creep cautiously out of their underground shelters to stand in the sunlight at long last. Only to see armed soldiers and giant monsters moving cars with their bare hands, but still it was a suitably dramatic time in their lives.

The bubble burst at 2:39 AM one Tuesday morning, when Alaric was woken in his bed by a loud beeping noise from his terminal. Blinking the bleariness from his eyes, Alaric turned on the monitor and looked at the message received. If he still possessed a flesh and blood heart it might have skipped a beat as he read the brief message from Veronica.

[McNamara is dead. Hardin has taken command. We're trying to get out. It's all gone to hell.]

Alaric sighed, wiping a hand on his brow. "Yes Man!" He called, the AI's cheery face flickering onto a nearby screen. "Initiate Operation Exodus, and put the army on full alert, we're about to have a very big problem." As the chipper AI obeyed his commands, Alaric rose from bed, padding through his apartment to overlook the strategy map on the wall, notes and plans laid out. He turned to look out the window, the sparkling lights of Vegas shining in the night, until it turned into the dark Mojave beyond. Mere months after the last one ended, it looked like the region was again on the brink of war.

===Author's Note===

I think I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome writing like this, three chapters in three days. Slightly awkward chapter this time, end of one arc and the beginning of another, but I think it works well enough, finishing up this dose of character development with some bombshells from Chase, before Alaric gets ready to throw some more bombshells around himself.

Comment and Review, I'd really like to know what you all think.


	16. Broken Steel

Operation Exodus was a plan Alaric had cooked up with Veronica after they learned of the impending demise of Elder McNamara. The plan was simple in its concept, to get those members of the Brotherhood sympathetic to Veronica's viewpoint out of danger and out from under the thumb of Hardin. They would leave the bunker and move towards Vegas with the Mojave's military to protect them as they went, before reaching Vault 3 which would serve as their new base. In practice it was proving to be much more difficult. Hardin, not being a man to take any perceived defeat well, had apparently ordered his men to open fire on Veronica's group as they attempted to leave, or perhaps it was just a case of an itchy trigger finger. In either case shots had been fired and now Veronica's group was fleeing Hidden Valley at full speed.

Rushing to their defense was the Securitron army, or at least a decently sized unit of it, the tough robots racing quickly down roadways to meet up with the beleaguered exiles with Alaric rushing along not far behind. He was once again in full power armor and laden with the most deadly weapons he had collected in his travels. The regular army was also mobilizing but it just couldn't move as quickly as the Securitrons did, they rushed out to their operation zones without hesitation or delay, moving to meet up with the now exiled Brotherhood members as Alaric ran to catch up. He encountered them on Highway 15 as they walked north, on the most direct route to Vault 3.

They were a sorry looking bunch, some power armored troops mostly wearing T-45d armor and carrying small arms. There were others dressed in the sleek combat armor favored by their scouts and lower ranking personnel, that group being more numerous than the power armored warriors that formed a defensive cordon around them, there were even some wearing the simple grey fatigues they wore off duty. There were a good number of injured among the group, some being carried or limping along as they leaned upon others for support. At their head, walking with a purposeful stride and her head held high was a figure in T-51b armor and a power fist on her right hand, Alaric knew her at once from how she moved.

"Veronica." He radioed as he approached, the Brotherhood column halting as they saw him walk out of the night in his black armor, amber eye lenses glinting in the early morning darkness.

"Alaric." She responded. He could hear the pain in her voice, she was barely keeping it together. She had that same hollow sound that she had when some of her own brothers had nearly tried to kill her. Tonight it seems they had gone further than just threats.

"What's the situation?" He asked, hoping to appeal to her professionalism in a time of crisis.

With visible effort she pulled herself together. "McNamara, he died earlier tonight, and Hardin took command by right of succession. He made a speech to the entire bunker about what he planned to do, to retake Helios and reclaim everything that we had lost, and put you and the NCR in their proper place forever. There was a lot of disagreement after that, a lot of the younger people didn't want to start another war, a good number of the old guard supported Hardin and wanted to march off right then to go fight. I told Hardin that we didn't want to lose more people to a lost cause, tried to make him see that it was meaningless, that we wouldn't gain anything and we'd lose a lot more. But he wouldn't listen. Tempers got hot, people started shouting and calling each other traitors. Then some of the juniors just tried to leave and then…" She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "Someone started shooting, I don't know who, but after that everything happened very fast. Hardin's people tried to lock down the bunker and we had to shoot our way out, past our own people. We lost some, I couldn't…"

Alaric laid a hand on her shoulder. "You saved many, that's all you could do, without you to lead them a lot of these people wouldn't be here right now, and they wouldn't have anywhere to go now. Don't be so hard on yourself." He reassured her. He cocked his head as he listened to a report from the Securitrons who had rolled further down the road to make sure none of Hardin's loyalists were giving chase. "It looks like Hardin's people have backed off for now, but no telling how long that is going to last. Come on, we need to get your people to safety and get the wounded proper care, Vault 3 is all ready for you."

Vault 3 was very much intact and operable, and had been quickly selected as the base for the Brotherhood in exile should Operation Exodus become necessary. It was a relatively short trip from Hidden Valley along I-15 and very close to New Vegas itself. It offered a secure facility from which the Brotherhood exiles could be based and be kept very close at hand in a position that Alaric had direct control over.

Veronica looked back at the column of tired, scared looking people she was leading. He couldn't see the expressions of the troops in power armor, but he could read their body language. Jittery, jumpy, scared. Right now they were running on instinct and the ingrained instincts they had been trained with, helmets swiveling to watch for another attack and liable to shoot at anything that jumped up too suddenly. "Have you told them the plan?" He asked her.

"There hasn't been much time, they just know we're going someplace, someplace safe. Do you want to tell them?"

He shook his head. "No, you should do this, they need your leadership right now." She gave him a look, he knew it even through his armor. "You'll be fine, just talk to them, they need one of their own to reassure them right now."

She nodded, turning back to her people. "Okay." She said, wavering. "Okay!" This time more decisive. "I know you're all tired, and scared, but we only have a little further to go. We're going to Vault 3, it's just up this road, and Hardin's people aren't following us anymore, my friend Alaric, uh, Mr. Reynolds, has seen to that." She nodded to him. "So we're safe for the moment, just everyone please calm down, we're going to be someplace safe soon and then we can tend to the wounded. Just a little further people, come on." She called, waving them on. With the prospect of safety ahead of them, the column started moving again up the Long 15 as Alaric ordered his Securitrons to secure defensive positions to keep the Brotherhood at bay.

He keyed his radio, calling McCarran. "Boone, you there?"

"Yeah." Came the reply a moment later. He honestly wondered sometimes if the man actually slept.

"The Brotherhood situation has gone critical, shots fired. We need to mobilize now. It may well come down to a war with Hardin's faction. I'm extracting Veronica's group now, they're combat ineffective for the moment, do what you can."

"I wouldn't be too eager to throw the Army at the Brotherhood, not as they are now." Boone cautioned. "They're all too green for my liking, and small arms aren't the best tools to use against power armor. We're distributing the LAERs you brought up from Big MT but those are a little thin on the ground right now. We need to get that supply line running."

"Work crews are still working in Bullhead, we need to buy time, do whatever you can."

"Always do." He said with simple finality before Alaric cut the line. He sighed, marching alongside the Brotherhood exiles, glad that his helmet hid his worried expression.

XXXXX

The exiles reached Vault 3 soon after, with some Follower volunteers standing by to help treat their wounds alongside their own medical staff that had fled with them. With the exiles secured behind the Vault's blast door and receiving proper care, Alaric made the quick jog over to McCarran, leaving Veronica in charge of her people. He tromped into the McCarran command center, Boone standing over a glowing strategy map and glowering at the little icons on the surface as if he could smite them with the sheer force of his displeasure. All around him were more junior officers manning radios and computer terminals, the center was abuzz with energy.

"Boone, what's the situation?" He asked as he removed his helmet and walked over.

The Commander looked up as he approached. "Fluid." He said simply, waving a hand at the glowing indicators. "There are patchy reports coming in from all over, the Brotherhood is on the march. They're not just sticking to Hidden Valley."

"Have they opened fire on any of our units?" Alaric queried, not seeing any combat indicators on the map.

"Not yet, but they're spreading out. One unit heading west, another east." He indicated to fat arrows spreading out from Hidden Valley in either direction.

"They're cutting the Mojave in half." Alaric realized as he looked at the map. "East and west, going for the highways, what's their probable destination?"

Boone grimaced. "The eastern unit is moving towards Helios and they seem to already be taking over Black Mountain. The western arm is moving towards the NCRCF and Goodsprings."

A knot began tying itself in Alaric's gut as he looked at the strategic data. Goodsprings and Boulder City were both directly in the line of the Brotherhood's advance. The latter was sparsely populated but the former was one of the major settlements of the Confederation. Beyond that he knew the people there, Doc Mitchell, Sunny Smiles, The Prospector Saloon, people and places that meant something to him, the place where for all intents and purposes his life had begun.

"Defenses in their path?" He asked, looking at the units with a sinking feeling. "Can we halt their advance?"

Boone gave him a long, hard look. "Goodsprings has only minimal defenses. A few Securitrons, the volunteer militia, they can't hold against a Brotherhood push for long. And if they fortify the NCRCF into a base of operations they will have command of the region. Helios is much better defended but with all the units pulled off of the perimeter to enforce order across the Mojave…" He let the sentence hang for a moment. "If the Brotherhood really puts their backs into it they might be able to take the facility."

Alaric ran a gauntleted hand through his hair and took a deep breath. His strategy to get the Mojave to sign on with his plans had pulled large numbers of the Securitron army away from securing strategic positions and put them on road patrol and town security, visible positions that made people feel good, made them want to join up. But it had weakened his defenses at the most vital positions, Helios and Hoover and a few others besides. He had no reserves, only the units out on deployment and they might not get there in time. "Recall as many units as you can, get them to Helios to reinforce the defenses there, as for"

He was interrupted as a radio operator turned in his seat. "Sirs! Report from the Goodsprings defense force. Brotherhood paladins sighted, they're moving in." One of the icons representing Hardin's loyalists jumped across the map as its position was updated. "They are demanding the town surrender to their authority and the defense force stand down. Your orders sir?"

Alaric gulped and tried to think clearly, this was all happening far too fast. "How many?" He asked after a moment.

"I'm not sure, the officer there is frantic, sir?"

Boone leaned in. "They can't hold the town, not against a force like the one they're facing. You know it."

"You'd ask me to have them surrender their home?" He asked, the knot in his guts twisting tighter.

"You'd ask them to die for a battle they cannot possibly win? The Brotherhood has that town, you have to decide how much blood is spilled there."

"Sir, what are your orders?" The radio operator asked more frantically.

"Stand down! Have the troops retreat from the town, Goodsprings is lost. Have the defense units there move north and rejoin our main forces." He said, heart heavy as he sighed, watching the icons for the Securitrons rolling out of Goodsprings and heading north along the road.

"We'll get them back." Boone promised him, hand touching Alaric's arm. "You made the right decision."

Alaric glowered at the strategic display. "I need every robot I can get." He growled. "We need to preserve our army if we're going to win this."

He watched as units from the south rolled up highway 95 towards Helios, forming up with the defensive force there, the eastbound force had moved into the mountainous area around Scorpion Gulch. Alaric looked to Boone. "They're going to hit Helios, and I won't surrender that without a fight." He said firmly.

Boone nodded. "I don't know if we can hold it, are we going to use all our assets?"

Alaric gave him a low look. "Archimedes." He said, the word heavy on his voice. The prewar super weapon, not really the most impressive weapons system but it did give a strategic strike capability without worrying about any kind of logistical concerns. Just point and click, free of charge. Only problem was that you needed to have the Helios facility to bounce the needed power up to the satellite to fire the damn thing.

He shook his head. "No, we've never used it, and we can't let the Brotherhood know it's operational. If we use it on them they'll figure out how to work it and start hitting us with it, probably targeting this city." He shook his head again, marching over to a radio operator. "Send a message to Helios One, top priority. Send the codephrase 'Tripwire Protocol'." The man nodded and began sending the message. The Tripwire Protocol would instruct the operator staff at Helios to sabotage the operating system for the Archimedes II satellite, pulling the hardware needed to target and communicate with the orbiting death ray and then evacuate to keep it out of enemy hands. "Tripwire Protocol confirmed. They will be evacuating south." The operator responded.

The next half hour passed in tense anticipation, the Tripwire Protocol was enacted, key hardware to operate the Archimedes system was removed and all data on the system was purged from the computers, the only existing copies now inside the Lucky 38 and McCarran itself.

"Sir, Securitron patrol unit 14 reports Brotherhood units sighted on the El Dorado lakebed, they're moving towards the highway." An operator reported.

"They're cutting the reinforcement line." Boone noted.

"Sir they have opened fire on the patrol unit, the Brotherhood has opened fire!"

Alaric closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before he checked his Pipboy. "Operator, mark the time. We are now officially at war with the Brotherhood of Steel.

XXXXX

The civilian operators at Helios were safe, for the moment at least, fleeing southward down highway 95 towards Novac as Securitrons from the southern half of the Mojave were rolling northwards along the same road to reinforce Helios. But the Brotherhood's attack had already begun. Like a player ready to move his pieces, Alaric leaned over the strategy table and watched the little colored icons moving about, zooming in on the battlefield. The Brotherhood units were moving south along the road, as well as moving straight for the perimeter fence, a detonation flash lighting up on the map.

"They used a mini nuke to blow a hole in the fence wide open, smart." He muttered darkly. "We can't let them encircle the compound." He realized as he saw the Brotherhood sweeping down along the highway, looking to cut it off from resupply. He directed several units to wheel out of the main entrance and move across the road to try and encircle the attackers while more poured from the central facility to attack. Alaric drummed his fingers on the table as he watched.

"The reinforcements are moving too slowly." He growled, glaring at the units that hadn't arrived yet, patrols coming in in fits and spurts. "We took too many units off of sentry duty to cover the borders."

"The defensive line is weakening." Boone noted. It was true, there were just too many attackers, their weapons too good. Against small arms fire the Securitrons were excellent, but the Brotherhood's high powered energy weapons negated much of that advantage. Without their armor the big boxy robots were very large targets and they were going down. Not without a fight, but they were losing, being blasted one by one. Damned Tesla Cannons, if he ever found out who invented that cursed thing…

"Another mini nuke!" An operator called, observing the battle through a POV transmission from a defending robot. "On the highway, there's a breach!" Alaric cursed as he looked, a hole blown open in the defensive line he had sent out, cutting the force into two halves. Before the robots could reform the line a spearhead of paladins rushed through the gap, dividing his forces and leaving half of them out in the open on the highway. The Brotherhood's line shifted, moving into the facility with a rearguard taking cover along the slopes and targeting the huge rectangular outlines of the robots.

"We can't hold them." He breathed out in mounting horror. The defense was falling apart before him, a slow motion disaster playing out in the little colored blips on the map screen, friendly units winking out as they were destroyed.

"The Brotherhood has breached the power plant." An operator reported in a heavy voice. He watched a POV shot from a robot of power armored troops storming through the main doors. The interior was all but undefended, the robots had difficulty navigating the confined space and stairwells, now that they were inside it would be almost impossible for them to drive them out with the robots alone.

"Boone." He said, not wanting to give voice to the distasteful order. "We've lost this fight. Get surviving units out of there and have the southern units fall back, we need to contain them so they cannot spread further."

The Commander nodded, giving the orders as Alaric ran a gauntleted hand over his face. The order was given, the remaining robots retreating from the combat zone as the Brotherhood fully claimed Helios One again. One hour later the situation had begun to stabilize of a sort. The Brotherhood force at Helios had pushed on and claimed Boulder City, but stopped short of Hoover Dam, clearly thinking they couldn't challenge its defenses. Their mistake, it gave time for Alaric to move the Mojave Army into position to hold it, shoring up its token defenses and ready to offer a real battle if it came down to it. As dawn broke the first alarms started coming in from across the Mojave. Power levels had dropped, Helios had been disconnected from the power grid. With that, their single greatest source of power to the region was gone, the Vault power systems could help, but they couldn't power everything alone.

Dawn broke over a nation divided in half. From Boulder City to Goodsprings, a line had been drawn across the map, mountain ranges on the west, Lake Mead to the east, the Brotherhood forces had cut the Mojave Confederation in half. Reading over a casualty report from the earlier battle, Alaric was faced with the task of unifying it again, or else all his struggles in forming it would have been for nothing.

XXXXX

"I need super mutants reinforcing blockade lines here, here and here." Alaric commanded, marking positions on the map. "Redirect patrol units 17 and 5 to shore up the defenses at Primm, we can hold any attack at the pass on the highway, and reinforce the patrol units north of Novac. It's open terrain so the Securitrons are in their element, has there been any report of Brotherhood elements moving south?"

It had been hours since the battle at Helios, and thus far there had not been any further combat with Hardin's loyalist forces, they seemed for the moment content to hold the strip of territory they had claimed for themselves. While in theory this left them fighting a war on two fronts, the vast majority of Alaric's military was north of the line they had drawn, leaving the southern Mojave very vulnerable. At the same time if the Brotherhood tried to secure it they would weaken their own position by diverting manpower, they had to know this so for now it was left unmolested.

"What's the word from Vault 3?" He asked an operator as he read over scouting reports. M-SOC teams had been deployed in a rough skirmish line as an early warning measure, scouting out the Brotherhood's positions from a safe distance. Their defenses were solid generally it seemed, but they were stretched thin. He couldn't imagine they had much of a reserve if any, the Brotherhood was never the most numerous force out there and the enemy they faced here was one faction of a chapter barely recovering from devastating losses. Still, he didn't have the limitless manpower and logistical steamroller of the NCR, he couldn't afford to just throw resources at the problem until it went away.

"Wounded are receiving care, most have stabilized, the others are recuperating and rearming." The operator informed him.

"Tell me when they're combat ready, we need all the help we can get. And make sure their armor gets repainted, I don't want to be dealing with friendly fire incidents on top of everything else." He commanded, the man relaying his orders over radio quickly. At least the Dam was secure, an M-SOC team backed up by several platoons of regular troopers, the robotic guardians and 'Cannibal' Johnson's squad of Enclave Remnants who had dusted their armor off again for one more hurrah. They had been very valuable as teachers and advisors to his Army, now he needed to call upon their strength once more.

Boone walked over, looking at the map then up at him. "So, what exactly is our long term plan?" He asked calmly.

Alaric looked to his longtime companion. "We need to retake Helios before they figure out how to use it. They're smart people, we should work on the assumption that they will eventually figure out how to use the Archimedes system regardless of our precautions, hopefully we've bought enough time to retake the facility before they do. It doesn't do to underestimate the Brotherhood."

Boone nodded. "Still, it looks like most of the experienced scientists and techs went with Veronica, so hopefully the brainpower Hardin's got on hand is limited. We have some time. Right now their defenses at Helios are too tough, it would be a meatgrinder trying to take it on foot. We need to buy time for the road to Bullhead to be cleared and get our reinforcements from the south. We catch them in a two front war and they won't have a chance with the numbers they've got."

"Until then we need to harry and harass." Alaric decided, checking over the assets they had to deploy. "Sniper teams, start picking people off. Anti-Materiel rifles, Railguns, whatever we've got that can crack those tin cans."

Boone nodded. "What about the bomber. It's an option."

He shook his head. "No, we need that thing, it's our only strategic deterrent to the NCR, our bomb supply is limited and I won't use them up dropping them on my own country. But put word through to Nellis, I have a proposal for them I'm sure they won't mind."

"Our recon is still patchy." Boone pointed out. "We're not sure what they're doing to the south, our forces are too thin on the ground to give us an accurate picture down there."

He nodded in agreement. "We can infiltrate an M-SOC team with the Vertibird, fly out and around to land far south and then walk in, nice and quiet, make sure to send your best. We have to deny them access to the south, and blockade Hidden Valley if we can. If we can cut their food supply then we can make a siege of it."

Boone grunted. "Tough. North side is their garrison at Black Mountain, south is the old prison, both are well defended."

"I have a plan to deal with the prison, Black Mountain is another matter entirely." He grimaced. "Once we get Veronica's people back up to combat readiness that'll help even the scales a bit. They're the weaker of the two factions militarily but with all the support we can give them it might be enough to turn the tide, we just have to hold them until that road opens up. Speaking of, how is Bullhead doing?"

Boone shrugged slightly. "Not exactly my area of expertise but it's doing alright. Work crews are making progress on clearing the road, and our people are making contact with the natives. Seems to be working out so far, they're having trouble believing it was us that turned off the Shroud but we have the logs from the team that did it, as well as access to the Vault, so that seems to be enough evidence. They're grateful, but very cautious, not ready to sign up just yet. Their world just got a thousand times bigger and they're not sure what to make of it yet." He chuckled darkly. "At least they haven't eaten any of the diplomatic team, so that's off to a nice start."

Alaric's mouth twitched into a smile, if only for a moment. "Right, well I don't know what else to do right now. Our assets are in motion so for the moment, all we can do is wait and see how it plays out."

Commander Boone nodded. "Right, I'll give the troops their marching orders. We lost a fair number of robots at Helios, I'd hate to see this war go on too long."

"You and me both." Alaric echoed.

===Author's Note===

Oh dear, it's a shooting war and the Brotherhood has first blood. Or oil probably in this case.

I'm also considering starting a new little segment down here at the end of some chapters, a technical guide and regional news type installment to explain backstory and technical details without having to have some contrived reason for characters in the narrative to blatantly explain every little thing. Any thoughts?


	17. Bolt from the Blue

Alaric didn't leave the command center for the next day. He didn't need rest as much as the others did, he was fine and couldn't bear to step away from the command center lest something terrible happen while he was gone. The snipers had begun their attacks, popping up along the skirmish lines to take potshots at any paladin that presented too good a target. They had inflicted damage upon the defending warriors, but taken casualties as well. It wasn't as if they were the only ones with access to railguns and scoped rifles, and Brotherhood veterans were expert marksmen. Between Brotherhood counter-snipers and their willingness to hose down any suspected sniper nests with high explosives and minigun fire it was a tricky business. Still it was needed to keep their heads down lest the Brotherhood be able to further shore up their defenses with autoturrets or minefields.

Raiding parties of paladins were being reported south of the main front, seizing supplies and materiel from trade caravans and harassing locals. The rocky pass to Primm was well defended but the Brotherhood's control of Helios gave them unfettered access to the southeast Mojave all the way down to Nipton. And then it was only a matter of time before they found suitable passes through the rocky foothills and mountains that acted as a natural barrier.

They shied away from Novac and the 188 Trading Post for now at least, their garrisons too tough to contend with for the small bands, but farmers, homesteaders and traveling merchants were being shaken down at gunpoint, food and supplies being carried back to the Brotherhood's positions. There had been clashes between units of the Mojave Army and these parties, with casualties on both sides. Felling a paladin was rare and difficult work but it was doable. Sometimes the raiding parties would walk into a minefield or take a rocket out of nowhere. More often there would be an exchange of fire with the troopers. They were inflicting losses but the exchange rate was high, small arms often needed to get lucky or wear the enemy down with sheer rate of fire in this case. Meanwhile their front line remained strong, with the southern forces tied up defending the towns and trying to repulse raiding parties the only strategic threat was to the north.

The good news was that Veronica's group had recovered from their ordeal, at least most of them, and those physically fit for combat had deployed out of Vault 3 to reinforce the northern battle lines. While they were more composed of the lower ranks and junior members compared to Hardin's loyalists, there were plenty of veterans as well. And any of them were a damn sight better than his own troopers in terms of both training and equipment. They had the higher volume of T-45d armor compared to Hardin's group but he'd supplemented their armament by passing them a good chunk of the LAERs they had recovered. The electrical based weapons were excellent counters to power armor and should help make the difference.

Added to them were the super mutants, a relatively small but decently sized corps of them were being trained up in McCarran and other facilities. Sadly there were none in the south but their natural toughness and ability to easily wield heavy weapons made them a great asset. So with two varieties of 'super soldier' to deploy, in addition to the sizable Securitron force, Alaric felt he still had plenty of cards to play in this confrontation. The regular Army troopers were outmatched on all sides, but numbers and good tactics could still carry the day if given the proper chance. The Brotherhood was powerful but stretched thin, a few good battles could weaken them to render their position unsustainable. The troops he had sent to Bullhead were needed to fend off feral ghoul attacks on the work crews so he couldn't recall them, but they estimated perhaps a week or so until the road was cleared and they could start moving the roboscorpions into position.

So, keep the Brotherhood off balance until reinforcements arrived. Tricky but doable, thankfully he had a plan. His forces were going to launch an attack on the western edge of the Brotherhood's battle line, near Goodsprings. Its proximity to Hidden Valley meant it wouldn't be any less defended, but if he could hit them hard there, it might make them divert forces away from the eastern front and Helios. He was under no illusion that he could storm Hidden Valley itself with his current forces, but for this plan he didn't need to do anything so dramatic, at least not yet. He checked over his map again, making sure all was in readiness. The Boomers had agreed to his idea with their usual enthusiasm, and he had formed up a unit of the Army from the south and had them standing by at Primm, safe for the moment behind its heavily defended rocky pass.

With a final nod, he donned his helmet and marched out, black power armor glinting in the light as he quickly marched south with the mustering army. It may not have been the wisest of moves, but he had to be there when the shooting started. He couldn't send his soldiers to die and sit out by choice. Besides, he thought with a grin, he counted himself very high on the list of the Mojave's strategic assets.

XXXXX

Alaric marched down the ranks of troops, a large force of Army regulars, supplemented by a corps of Brotherhood exiles and supermutants. He certainly cut an impressive figure in his black armor, a LAER slung across his chest and a Vindicator minigun in his arms, various other weapons about his person on slings and holsters. The Vindicator alone was a fabulously rare and incredibly powerful weapon, chambered in the rare 4.7mm caseless ammunition that gave it the large magazine capacity it enjoyed, as well as its incredible lethality. Ever since he'd dragged that Sierra Madre vending machine from Elijah's old bunker to the Lucky 38 he'd been fabricating ammunition since it was very rare in this area. It was just the kind of thing for this engagement, and overkill against anything less than the elite of the Brotherhood. The first time he'd field tested it he'd wiped out an entire Legion camp in a few long bursts. And of course there was always the Saturnite power fist that replaced his right gauntlet.

"Soldiers." He addressed the assembled forces in his powerful Voice of Command. "Knights, defenders of the Mojave all. In these past few days we have all been struck a terrible blow. Treachery from within has sundered bonds of brotherhood, and our beloved nation has been cruelly divided by a would be tyrant. Our fellows across the Mojave have already drawn blood in recompense for these crimes. Today we are going to strike back hard and show these bastards what we're made of. I for one am proud to stand with you all. Let's send a message, the Mojave bows to none!" He pumped his fist in the air a cry going up along the battle line.

He nodded stoically, hefting his minigun and looking down the road. To their west was the foothills of the mountains that bordered the Mojave, this was as far west as they could go, and just to the south was Goodsprings. He couldn't quite tell why they wanted that town, perhaps simply for a garrison, perhaps as a supply point to seize food and water from the civilians there, maybe just to prove they could take a town from him. Well, he was about to retake it with a force several times more powerful than the one they had scared off earlier. But for all his grand talk about principles and ideals, in the end he was retaking Goodsprings for a simple and pragmatic reason, geography. This town wouldn't open up the road south, the Brotherhood forces at Hidden Valley and the NCRCF still had the road locked down, but this operation would rock them back on their heels, show them that they weren't going to just walk all over the Mojave, make them bleed for it.

He took a deep breath, raised his arm and waved forwards, commencing the operation. While the attack was strategically important, the offensive itself was not a tactically brilliant plan. There was no nuance, no special considerations, no trump cards or sudden surprises. There was just the one road and an enemy occupied town at the end, and a whole big bunch of angry soldiers ready to come pouring down that road in a great torrent. They had numerical superiority, but the Brotherhood had the advantage of fighting defensively. Goodsprings was not exactly a strong fortified position, but the hill that hosted the cemetery gave them a high ground advantage. Mojave Army snipers had been keeping the Brotherhood from assembling heavy weapons on that terrain however, so their advantage there was limited. The only subtle element of this plan was the part where Nightkin would skirt around the back of the cliff to flank the enemy just as they were going to strike with the main force, apart from that this was a mad rush straight into the town. At least there wasn't a minefield to worry about.

Their advance began at a steady march, supermutants and Brotherhood Knights out in front to act as shock troops, the wedge to force open the defenses so the main force of the army could pour through. It would be brutal in the end, a direct advance down an open road into the jaws of a dug in defender. But that was why the Nightkin were so critical to put them off balance in that crucial last moment. As he marched alongside his soldiers, and his allies, he looked around at them, grim faced and determined, or hidden behind stoic helmets. The willingness of regular men and women to throw themselves into the jaws of death for a cause or a leader had always amazed him. He was different, made of sterner stuff, these people seemed so fragile, wrapped in a uniform coat and light body armor, marching beside him to whatever fate lay in store. Did he truly deserve that kind of loyalty, did a man without a past deserve to lead these people to death? Did it make it easier for him to risk his life without having memories of a family or a home to go back to, to not think of one day retiring and living the good life. They amazed him, and they baffled him.

He heard something then, apart from the sound of marching feet and quiet talking, someone was humming a melody, an old song that he recognized dimly. When Johnny Comes Marching Home, a very old song from centuries before the Great War, something about it just seemed to resonate with soldiers of every age. The sound grew louder and louder as more soldiers lent their voice to the tune, the humming growing louder and louder in tempo with their marching feet. Alaric hummed along himself as they came down the road, seeing the outline of Goodsprings in the distance. Alaric, at the forefront of his army, charged. And around him, all hell broke loose.

A Tesla Cannon blast impacted somewhere to his left, his HUD going fuzzy for an instant as he poured on the speed, scanning for targets as ED-E marked targets from where he flitted about like a will o' the wisp. The supermutants were either lugging miniguns or carrying LMG class weapons like simple rifles, and they opened up at range, using their great strength to keep the guns mostly on target as they advanced, laying down suppressive fire. The road ahead was straight and clear, which offered them little cover but it did little to protect the enemy either. And Goodsprings itself was directly on the other side of the cliff where the cemetery sat, so in order to engage them the enemy would have to come around the hill and fight them directly. Some climbed the hill of course to shoot at them from the cliff top, but that left them exposed as well.

"Daisy, I need that support right about now." He radioed as they started taking fire from the cliff, his snipers trying to pin the enemy down but with the impetus of an invading army to deal with they seemed willing to brave the marksmen's fire for the moment.

"Been a while since I flew through a hot zone." The elderly woman quipped over the radio as he heard the beat of rotors. "This'll teach them to not set up anti air."

The old Enclave Vertibird rose up over the mountains and swooped down towards Goodsprings, opening fire with its chin mounted heavy gatling laser, blasting glowing pockmarks in the ground as it swept by.

"Be advised, they have at least one Tesla Cannon, don't sit still." He warned, depressing the firing stud on the minigun's grip to let off a long burst, sending a paladin scrambling for cover.

"Wasn't planning on it." She responded, seeming far too happy to be flying a combat mission through hazardous airspace. For a woman old enough to be his grandmother she was the biggest adrenaline junkie he knew.

A supermutant just behind him let out a cry of anger and pain as a hypervelocity slug from a railgun tore through his chest, dropping the huge warrior in his tracks. Grunting angrily, Alaric stitched a line of fire over the offending shooter, the weight of fire chopping an arm off and sending the mortally wounded paladin tumbling.

"Keene, sitrep." He inquired in clipped tones as they traded fire with the defending brotherhood, their sheer momentum pushing them forwards through the hail of laser beams and plasma bolts, one stubborn defender hugging the rock walls and laying on the trigger of a minigun. At least the high ground was denied, the Vertibird's frequent strafing runs keeping them suppressed.

"In position." The Nightkin leader responded. "Attacking now."

The Nightkin, equipped with the long blade staffs which were being adopted by the other supermutant infantry, as well as powerful super sledges when possible, slipped into the town from the east, their forms like wavering water, all but indistinguishable in the chaos and rush of battle, letting them get close and dispatch the Brotherhood sentries with quick bashes of their sledges or brutal thrusts of their long blades that found neck seams and joints. Soon they were inside the perimeter and wreaking havoc within the little town.

At the same time Alaric's force was hardly slowing down, his minigun's barrels smoking gently as he fired concentrated bursts, the powerful rounds cracking and perforating power armor. He took his own hits to, a plasma bolt seared his shoulder, a laser blast had made a melted crater on his chest and seared the skin beneath with heat, but he was fine, he knew it. He reloaded, dropping a spent ammo can and slamming in a new one as the first of the exile knights turned the corner into Goodsprings itself, which was already a battlefield as the Nightkin team ran rampant in the streets. Between the infiltrators, the gunship and his force's assault, the occupying force was in complete disarray.

Still, the Brotherhood's paladins were elite warriors trained since they were old enough to walk, they did not go down easily, and they did not surrender. They fought valiantly, rallying and falling back in good order under cover of heavy weapons fire until they were making their stand at the schoolhouse, the old wood being shot to pieces and blackening under laser fire. "Finish this!" Alaric cried, Setting the Vindicator down and drawing a black rod from his belt. Two prongs flicked out and a glowing arc of bluish energy flared to life between them, crackling with purple-black energy, a Protonic Inversal Axe. He keyed his GRX implant into overdrive and kicked the door so hard it flew clear off its hinges and tumbled across the room in slow motion, launching through the door while drawing his Pulse Gun with his off hand.

He raised the axe and slashed down, the tangible energy field chopping through the armor of the nearest paladin where the helmet met the chest, energy arcing across his armor as the servos went haywire. He pumped shots into another with the energy pistol, the power armor lighting up as the arcing electricity covered it. One paladin raised a plasma rifle to fire at him, he calculated the firing trajectory in an instant and ducked, spinning closer as the green bolt flew lazily by, rotating to slam the axe into the paladin's side, cutting deep.

As the paladin fell he rose up, using his body as a shield for a moment to put more shots into another paladin, before he turned to the last one. As the final enemy raised a multiplas rifle, trying to track his impossibly fast movements, Alaric pulled his arm back and threw, sending the axe tumbling through the air to strike the paladin in the head, splitting his helmet in half. The chems in his bloodstream receded, his body cooling down, time returned to normal amidst the sound of armored bodies and weapons clattering to the floor. Only five seconds had passed since he kicked in the door.

Alaric walked back out of the schoolhouse, looking around at the town. There were bullet holes everywhere, bodies lay in the clearings and the streets, the townsfolk most likely cowering in their houses, unsure if it was all over yet.

"Secure the perimeter." He ordered a supermutant squad leader, the big soldiers tromping off to police the edges of the town. The rush of battle faded, replaced by the melancholy aftermath as he looked over the bodies of the dead and the damage done to the quaint little town. The schoolhouse was half wrecked and stray fire had hit a lot of other structures. At least he wasn't seeing any civilian casualties, but there was no way to tell yet if stray fire had punched through a wall and hit someone inside.

"You there." He addressed a squad leader, human this time. "Go around and check the civilians, tell them they're safe now, and see if there are any wounded, do what you can for them. Medics are on their way." He assured the man, before he keyed his radio.

"Boone, operation phase one complete, tell the Boomers to proceed." He sent back to command at McCarran. Boone acknowledged in his usual clipped tones. The Boomers had been waiting up the road and now that the town was secure, began their caravan headed south, pulling their heavy duty equipment with brahmin teams.

Alaric walked over to a familiar sight, opening the door to the Prospector Saloon. For an instant the phantom image of Sunny Smiles stood there with her dog, but faded just as fast. He walked over to the bar, radio softly playing music. Trudy peeked out from behind the bar as he removed his helmet.

"Is the bar still open?" He asked, offering her his hand. She took it, letting him pull her up. Her eyes were wide, but she nodded.

"Yeah, I suppose. I guess what I just heard was you clearing the town out?"

"Me and some friends." He admitted, taking the whiskey she poured him. "I did promise this town I'd protect it, it's in writing."

She laughed nervously. "I suppose I shouldn't have doubted. Still, didn't expect you to do it yourself."

He shrugged, power armor servos whining. "It's kinda what I do."

He stayed until he'd finished the bottle, pushing his glass back and paying far more than it was worth. "Thanks, now you may want to cover your ears."

He walked back outside, keying his radio again. "Boone, we're starting phase two now." He said, looking over the Boomers as they finished preparations, setting up their equipment in the clearing at the center of town. He looked to the nearest one, checking something on his Pipboy. "You have the coordinates right?"

The Boomer nodded. "All logged and the trajectory was pre-calculated before we ever left Nellis, we're all ready here."

He nodded, drawing and lighting his axe again. "Very well then, no reason to waste time." He waved the axe dramatically towards the southeast. "Open fire!" He ordered, and as one the Boomer's howitzer battery opened fire, sending high explosive ordinance raining down upon the Brotherhood occupied NCRCF.

XXXXX

Alaric had entertained ideas of repurposing the old prison as a military base to lock down I-15, but in this case it was a lot more trouble than it was worth. Now, with the Mojave's future on the line, was not the time to be timid when throwing around his weight. The NCRCF was being shelled down to rubble, and the Army unit he'd formed up in the south before the battle was being sent to secure it's smoking remains as soon as the bombardment stopped. Advancing under the cover of the big guns, the infantry took up firing positions around the facility and engaged the surviving Brotherhood forces. Power armor was good but it couldn't shrug off a massed barrage of heavy howitzers, most of the survivors were wounded and dazed. It didn't take long for his troops to secure the charred ruin of the prison, the remaining paladins beating a fighting retreat north to Hidden Valley. Leaving his attack force in position to garrison Goodsprings and keep the road open, Alaric returned to McCarran. The operation was a success, they had forced an opening down I-15 and thus had access to the southern Mojave. Though he didn't doubt for a moment that the Brotherhood would further seek to cut off his movement, they had to know they couldn't win a two front war.

"That went about as well as can be expected." He remarked to Boone as he again strode into the command center. An aide came over and used a damp cloth to start cleaning the splashes of blood off his power armor.

"I bet they weren't expecting an artillery strike." Boone commented as he examined the changed strategic display. "As far as we know the Brotherhood doesn't have any kind of long range fire support, they're limited to infantry movements. With those guns in place we've secured passage through Goodsprings and can keep Hidden Valley suppressed. We can't hope to destroy their bunkers with them, but if our spotters see them poke their noses outside we'll drop the sky on them."

Alaric nodded. "Good. I have no illusions that they'll try to restrict our path south on the Long 15, it's too important for them to let us keep."

Boone nodded. "I'm way ahead of you on that. And you're right, they mined the roadway south of Goodsprings, we won't be able to move troops down it without clearing the mines first."

"And with Brotherhood snipers taking potshots all day long while we try." Alaric sighed, rubbing his temples in exasperation. "So not as big a victory as we anticipated."

"Still, a victory." Boone reassured him. "We inflicted casualties, denied them a strategic position and are in position to harass their main base of operations, weakening them logistically. They won't be able to move supplies and troops from Hidden Valley very easily."

He shook his head. "With that sandstorm system they'll be able to sneak supplies out whether we try to stop them or not. And if we've cut them off from food then they'll just step up their raiding in the southeast. However it turns out it's an ugly situation. Still, you're right, we made them bleed for it, probably will at least think twice before underestimating us again."

"They will retaliate." Boone said with absolute certainty. "Not sure where or when, but they will. It's not like them to sit a fight out. Still, hold them for a week and we'll have our reinforcements, then we'll really have them where we want them."

"I suppose." He said with a nod. "We have to ensure that they don't get any troops across the line, whittle them down. If we can hold them we win, just have to run out the clock. If they can punch through the frontline then we're in trouble. No offensives, no pushes, not unless it's worth it. We need to conserve our strength for the endgame."

"I agree." Boone nodded. "Trouble is if they'll give us the time." He nodded to the grey slash across the Mojave where the Brotherhood had taken control. "Hardin's no fool, but he's brash and impulsive and very sure of himself." Boone was silent for a long moment. "I think you should go to Vault 3, talk to Veronica and her people there, they've been through a lot."

Alaric was surprised and it showed. "Didn't think you were that much of a people person." He remarked.

Boone was silent for a long moment. "I know pain. Loss. They're feeling it right now. They need you to be there for them." He didn't add 'like you were for me', but Alaric heard it all the same.

He put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I'll go. Let me know if something happens." He asked, before leaving the command center.

XXXXX

Vault 3 Had been cleaned up nicely since the last time he'd seen it. That said, the last time he'd seen it was after he'd just finished painting the interior with the entrails of the Fiends who had occupied it as a base. Since then it had been cleared out and repaired, operating as a fully functional control Vault with nothing truly special to stand out in comparison to others of its kind. It was secure, functional and safe with systems to provide for the health and food requirements of its inhabitants. As bases went it was decent enough, and it did have a fully intact medical bay which was very important right now as Alaric imagined.

He found Veronica in the Overseer's office, sitting tiredly behind the desk and having exchanged power armor for a simple scribe's robe. "Hey." She said as he entered, giving him a tired smile.

"Hey yourself." He replied, looking out the circular window to the main hall beyond, walking wounded and technical staff going about their business, getting the Vault into line with what they needed it to be to function as their base of operations. He suspected that a lot of it was just to keep their hands busy to avoid dwelling on what had happened. "How are you holding up?"

She sighed, clasping her hands in front of her and fidgeting a bit. "We knew something like this would probably happen, knew for a while. But that doesn't make it any easier now that it's here." She admitted. "We're fighting and killing people we've known all our lives. Every single person who falls on both sides is a face I remember from when I was little that I'll never see again. In short, I'm not having a very good day. But I'm alright, I can keep it together. After everything we've gone through I know I can keep a clear head here."

He nodded, turning back to her. "Good, that's good. Those people out there will need you to be strong, to be a leader."

She looked up, seemingly surprised. "I'm not a leader." She shook her head. "You're doing all the leading right now anyway. It seems to be working well so far."

Alaric waved a dismissive hand. "Formulating and executing a tactical battle plan does not make me a leader, and certainly not their leader." He nodded to the window. "You are the one they're going to look to when the dust settles and the crisis comes to an end, not me."

"You can't… You can't be suggesting that I become Elder or something, are you?" She asked, disbelievingly.

He shrugged. "Why not? You seem to be doing a fine job of it so far. And you did get these people on your side rather than Hardin's, and you did lead them out of the bunker to safety here." He gestured around to the Vault they were in. "Why not make it official?"

She seemed to consider it but shook her head again. "No, no, no I can't do this. I was just following our plan! I'm not cut out for being an Elder or something. That requires a certain… vision."

"You had the insight to see that the Brotherhood needed to adapt to the new world, or it wouldn't survive." He pointed out. "You tried to influence the people in power to make the changes you knew needed to be made. Why not do them yourself now that you're in the right position. You started the movement that led to those people out there splitting away from Hardin's warmongering. You rallied them to you and led them here, and so convinced them that Hardin was wrong to follow his path that they were willing to follow me into battle to stop him. You know that the Brotherhood needs to interact with the outside world, and you know more about the outside world than anyone in the chapter. You have the vision, the intellect and the drive to make a great leader and I have full confidence in you."

She sat there in silence for a while, not seemingly able to speak. "I… I'll take over as acting Elder for the duration of this crisis of this… war. Afterwards we'll see what the others have to say, I won't declare myself in command like Hardin did. If they want me to lead, then I'll lead for them." She finally decided.

Alaric nodded and grinned. "I'm sure they will make the right decision. You'll make a fine leader for these people, you always did have the right ideas. Now I'm going to go thank those people out there for what they're doing. Don't worry, no big speeches, I just want to make them know how much what they're doing matters." He assured her.

"Right, I have more stuff to work out here anyway. Thanks for stopping by, I know you must be busy."

"Never too busy to help a friend." He said truthfully. Truth be told, he didn't really have all that many.

XXXXX

For the next two days the status quo was maintained in tense anticipation. Alaric had been correct in predicting Hardin's response to his attacks, cracking down on the territory to the southeast. He evidently had claimed the region as his own and was looting food supplies from the locals at gunpoint to build up his stockpiles, evidently preparing for a protracted siege if needed. The artillery in Goodsprings continued to be a valuable asset, suppressing enemy movement at Hidden Valley but with the rocky terrain and the cover of their artificial sandstorm it was impossible to prevent them from getting through. Units had traded fire, snipers and counter-snipers picked each other off in the high rocks and mountain foothills, but the battle lines stayed where they were.

The Bullhead situation was progressing acceptably enough. Evidently the work group was using food and medical supplies from the Vault to pay locals to pitch in, making the work go that much faster. Just a few more days and the road would be clear and he'd catch Hardin in a pincer. The only sudden surprise since the Goodsprings operation had been their interception of a broadcast from the Black Mountain facility, Hardin calling on the wayward chapters of the Brotherhood to come to his aid in defeating their enemies and in founding a new society to serve the Brotherhood so that they could become strong enough to crush all the upstart nations of the wasteland.

Alaric shook his head. Nobody had even heard of another Brotherhood chapter nearby enough to lend assistance. According to Veronica the nearest chapter they knew of was somewhere in Montana and communication with them was so spotty nobody even knew what they were up to anymore, or if they even still existed. The only other chapters he'd ever heard her talk about had either been disavowed or outright rebelled. He wondered idly if this conflict truly marked the end of the Brotherhood of Steel, if after this only divergent splinter factions would remain of the once proud organization. In any case, he very much doubted that anyone who heard that message would be able to get a force here in the next few days even if they cared to try. He was about to request a contact with his stranded forces in the south to coordinate troop movements when a radio operator turned in his seat to look at him, seeming shaken.

"Sir, message coming in, asking for you by name. Sir it's from Helios One."

Alaric's eyes flashed open in surprise. "Patch it into my armor comm." He ordered, putting his helmet on again and listening to the hiss and crackle of static before he shifted to the right frequency with a pop. "Alaric." He said simply.

"Ah, good to finally speak to you. I had been worried I'd have to talk my way past a legion of lackeys." Came a familiar voice.

"Hardin." Alaric growled into the helmet mic. "The hell do you want?"

There was an infuriatingly casual chuckle over the airwaves. "I want a great many things, but that is all for a later day. For the moment, I'm calling to discuss an immediate end to the current hostilities."

"Calling to surrender?" He asked in annoyance.

Hardin chuckled again. "Not quite. I'm not even calling to demand yours, if you'd believe it. I'm not so petty as to make you kowtow before me or hand over the keys to the city, you can keep your casinos and your cushy hotel. But you are going to give me what I want."

"Start talking." He replied, getting more annoyed with him by the moment. He calmed himself by imagining grabbing Hardin by the helmet and rotating it a full circle.

"First, You will cede all territory south of the Junction 15 rail station to me, and evacuate all of your troops from that region."

"You cannot possibly be serious." Alaric scoffed. "Your position is untenable. You cannot hope to hold that much terrain with your available forces and nobody is coming to help you. I heard your call for help, you and I both know that the nearest chapter is states away and on the other side of who knows what. Do you really think anyone is coming to save you?"

"We will have all the time we need to wait. And besides, I plan to set ourselves up nicely. I do credit you this, you made me realize that we can't just ignore these new wasteland nations. I used to think that all the people out here were just ignorant savages but you opened my eyes. Thank you for that."

"So, you're planning to set up a nice little kingdom, make the people of the Mojave into serfs to serve your whims?" He accused, hoping to get Hardin talking. If the man was really this sure of himself he might slip up and spill something important amidst his boasting. "Do you really think you can defend a territory that big with your forces? Your remaining forces, I should say."

"Thank you for reminding me, I'll be taking those howitzers too." Hardin growled, seeming to shoe the first hints of annoyance at Alaric's speech. Alaric grinned, ego, such an easy target to hit. "As for how I intend to defend my fiefdom, I invite you to see. Turn your gaze to the southern sky."

Alaric took a moment to realize what the man meant before his eyes flashed open and he started running, throwing the door wide and stepping outside in time to see a blue-white beam blazing down from the heavens to strike the ground some miles to the south, the scintillating energy beam dragging across the ground in a long sustained burst before cutting off.

"Archimedes." He breathed.

"I'm taking another lesson you taught me to heart, Alaric. That you can hold off a force of superior size by using strategic deterrence. Just like you threatened the NCR with that bomber of yours, I've got a gun to your head now. I admit it took a little longer than I had hoped, I wanted this to be a relatively bloodless transition but your sabotage meant we had to draw the fighting out. We worked around it eventually though, thanks to you again actually." He taunted, chuckling.

"It's a powerful weapon." Alaric conceded. "But you can't hope to stop my army with that. One shot, that's all you've got, and then nothing left to stop the rest of them. You'll hurt us, but you'll still die when we follow through."

Alaric could almost hear the smug smile over the radio. "It all depends on where we aim that one shot. Very clever of you, using the Vault power systems to support your little upstart nation, good use of available resources. How fortunate for you that you have a Vault built right underneath your city with its reactor intact. That would be a nuclear fission reactor if I'm not mistaken, and I know exactly where it is. I'm looking at the schematics right now in fact. Thing about Vaults, boy, is that they're built to withstand blast waves, not concentrated boring beams. If your troops set so much as a toe across the border I draw up, if you fail to abide by my demands, I'll shoot that reactor dead center and turn Vegas into a radiological disaster zone. Then I'll start shooting out all the others one by one until your whole precious little country is populated by nothing but feral ghouls. Care to bluster at me now, boy?"

Alaric's fists tightened and shook, glaring south with absolute hatred. "Keep talking."

"Smart lad." Hardin congratulated. "You're going to turn over complete command control of the Securitrons to me."

"Not possible." He countered quickly. "It's just not possible, command control is hardwired into the Lucky 38 and I can't change that. House was a paranoid old bastard so if anyone but him tried to control his army they'd all self-destruct." A believable lie, told with sincerity.

Hardin grunted. "I'll send people to confirm that in time. We'll be occupying Hoover of course."

"Too far Hardin." Alaric growled. "I don't doubt for a moment that you're sincere in your threats. So don't you doubt me. If you try to take that dam I'll blow its turbines to kingdom come and damn the consequences. I am a reasonable man, but you push me too far at your peril."

The line was silent for a long moment. "Very well, though I may change my mind. I've drawn a line in the sand Alaric, don't you dare cross it." He threatened before he cut the connection.

Alaric removed his helmet and went back inside. Everyone was looking at him, they had all overheard. Boone stood as stoic as ever. "Orders?"

Alaric processed this as best he could, looking at the situation map. "Give ground, pull them back. We can't risk the entire city to call their bluff. Evacuate the citizens as best we can and pull back."

"And the troops in the south?"

He thought some more, running a hand through his hair. "Send them south, out of the Mojave, go to Bullhead to form up with the units there. Tell them to stand by for when…" He couldn't think of what else to say. No 'and then' presented itself. If he attacked, Vegas would die, his country would die. He didn't see a way out. Something niggled at him though.

"Thanks to me again…" He said thoughtfully, remembering Hardin's words.

"What?" Boone asked.

"Hardin said it was thanks to me he could access the Archimedes satellite despite the sabotage. Why would he…" He looked over the map, leaning in, hands on the rim. "Black Mountain!" He realized. "They must be using the Black Mountain facility to control Archimedes! It's a military satellite uplink facility and I, I hooked in the control system that let the Brotherhood access its systems, I set the whole damned thing up!" He cursed, remembering performing Elder McNamara's little chore to let them map the region. "Hardin must have been planning this the bastard, working out how to use that uplink to control the satellite while they were still in the bunker."

"Question is, what do we do about it?" Boone asked, making Alaric frown again.

"Boone…" He said after a moment. "That M-SOC team you sent south to recon the Brotherhood's southern battle lines… are they still in position?"

XXXXX

Chase looked up from his Pipboy, having just finished reading off their new orders. The rest of the squad was sitting in a circle around their half-finished dinner in the little mountain cave they'd staked out as their hidden camp from which to conduct recon. Now they were all staring at him in shocked horror as they realized what they were being asked to do. Finally, Five Card broke the silence and gave voice to the overwhelming opinion in the cave.

"Bullshit."


	18. Man and Myth

The team was huddled behind a rocky outcrop as they examined the fortifications on Black Mountain, hoping to find some kind of chink in the defenses they would have to get past. Chase was examining it through binoculars while Royce swept over the base with his rifle's scope.

"So we have to infiltrate an elevated, naturally defensible compound." Tony began. "Heavily guarded by trigger happy Knights Templar in power armor with guns that can turn people into glowing goop, and if we botch this operation they'll turn a densely populated city into a wasteland."

"Basically, yeah." Chase agreed as he scanned the base.

"And we have to do it with no recon and no support." He continued.

"Seems to be the case." Chase agreed.

"Oh good, I was afraid I'd missed something." Tony sighed, rubbing his brow in consternation.

It was hard to disagree with him, the facility looked to be pretty well locked down. Though the good news was that it was no longer directly on the front lines, some of the garrison had been diverted away to securing other battlefronts. This 'Hardin' seemed convinced that his orbital trump card would keep Vegas at bay, so security had relaxed a little. Still, they were outnumbered by fighters that he was fully aware were better trained, equipped and more experienced than him and his squad. Outnumbered, outgunned, likely outclassed, and failure wasn't an option.

"Kinda makes me wonder if I made a bad career choice." Chase muttered aloud. "Back in Bullhead at least I wasn't dodging plasma bolts and laser beams. Well, not usually."

Royce piped up. "Is there anything in your professional experience that might be able to help here?"

Chase shrugged. "I could try to seduce the guards if you think that would work."

Royce gave him a look. "No, your other job." He said exasperatedly.

"I thought so." He replied, waiting a moment to add. "That was a joke."

Royce went back to his scope before doing a double take. "You… made a joke?" He asked, disbelievingly.

"I've been reading up." Chase replied happily, glad his research was paying off.

Five Card chuckled. "Might backfire on 'ya. With those helmets on it's impossible to tell men from women."

Chase gave him a confused look. "Why would that be relevant?"

Five Card gave him a suspicious look. "Was that a joke?" He asked, the two men staring at each other in mutual confusion.

"Gentlemen." Tony interceded gently. "I know we have a few days but can we get back to the matter at hand?"

Chase nodded, returning to his examination of the mountaintop base. "There's a little trail that we can climb up I believe, the Brotherhood might not know about it. We have one stealthboy and some power cells but those won't last terribly long. Tony, you'll need to get up there and figure a way to disable that satellite, I don't think I can do it."

Tony nodded. "We could try disabling the uplink dish directly, but it's possible that the satellite is set on a failsafe to take the shot if signal is lost or a passcode isn't sent up regularly. So to be sure we have to get into the command center and access the computers there, get access to the command system directly. Otherwise there's no way to be sure."

Chase nodded, thinking hard. "Hmm, there's bound to be guards inside the building so we need some way to distract them so you can get in. And we can't just start shooting because they'll retaliate against the city. Well, we have a few days until the southern army is ready to strike so we have some time. So what we need is a diversion." He began to stroke his chin thoughtfully.

XXXXX

Chase was still mulling over options that night, trying to think of some way to breach that compound when the time came. No matter which way he cut it he couldn't see a solution that didn't end with a very good chance of someone getting killed during the operation. It wasn't something he was used to, making decisions that would place lives in danger, usually he only risked his own. Even though his entire life was about securing his own chances for survival, the idea of making a call that got somebody killed seemed perhaps even worse than putting himself in mortal peril.

"Damned if I've got any ideas." Five Card grunted. The team was sitting in a little circle, eating dinner.

Royce shrugged. "I'm out of my element as well. There's limited high ground, the enemy has the advantage in shooting position that's for sure. I've got nothing beyond that."

Sawbones shook his head. "I'm a doctor, not a tactician. Not my job description."

Chase set his food down and sighed. "What about you Tony? Anything giving you ideas?"

Tony shook his head a bit. "No, not really." He admitted.

"No previous experience in this kind of thing?" He asked, pressing a bit. "Nothing?"

"No. I don't think so." He replied again, shaking his head.

Chase frowned, looking over to him. "Tony, just what exactly is your background?" He asked, leaning in a bit. "What did you do before you joined up with M-SOC? I've heard the stories you tell but they're all fake, so what is it really?"

Tony shot him a look, far more piercing and angry than the usually lighthearted man had given before. "I don't see how it's relevant, and I don't see why I should tell you regardless."

Chase leaned back, laying against the cave wall as the others watched. "It's been hard for me to talk about what I've done before, I'm not used to being open with people. But I've been trying, and it's been good. I'm a cannibal, and used to do a job that's seen as low and shameful in your society. Is what you did really that bad compared to that?" All eyes turned again to Tony. "I'm not looking to hurt you, but I would like to know you."

Tony sat in silence for a bit before he sighed. "Alright, fine. I used to run with a gang a few years back and I'm not proud of it." He seemed like he didn't want to talk, but after a minute of the others just looking at him he continued. "They raised me up since I was little, you have to understand that, it was the world I grew up in. We were a pretty brutal bunch and I don't like remembering what we used to do. We all thought we were hot shit back then and that the wasteland belonged to us, we were the biggest gang around so we ran around hurting people and taking whatever we wanted. That's what I grew up doing and it's where I got my experience breaking into things, I was the scout, the cracker."

The cave was quiet for a minute as they thought about what he said. Royce was the first to talk. "So when you said that you knew what it was like to be seen as something wrong…"

Tony nodded. "Yeah, I know what it's like to have things in your past you wish would stay buried, things that you regret but just can't change."

Chase gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "I was raised in a place very different to this, I suppose I can relate, in a way at least. How did you get out?"

Tony leaned back and took a deep breath, seeming to remember things he really wished he didn't. "Well one day we tried to run some people off of their land. It was fairly standard for us, show up and make threats, shoot anybody who looks at you funny before throwing our emblem over anything and carting off anything we liked the look of… anyone we liked the look of." His eyes got distant for a moment, like he was seeing back into the past. Tony was usually very animated, excitable, and fouler mouthed than Five Card even when he was drunk, now he just looked empty. "But these guys were a lot tougher than we were used to, tougher than us and basically everybody got their dumb asses killed trying to storm the place. I got shot up too but didn't quite die so I dragged my sorry ass off through the wasteland until I had the good fortune to be taken in by some ranchers who nursed me back to health. I didn't tell them anything about who I was or what I'd done, but they cared for me all the same. It was about a month before I left, and I left a different man I suppose. I realized how pathetic we had been, acting like the kings of the world when all we did was hurt people and break shit, so I decided I never wanted to be a part of that kind of thing again. Eventually I joined up here, maybe put my skills to better use, help make something good rather than being a bastard to feel tough."

Chase nodded after a long moment of contemplating what he'd said. "Thank you for sharing. What you did before doesn't really matter to me right now, it's what we do from here on out that's important. A lot of people are counting on us so it seems petty to throw stones about what you did before. It's hard to overcome the world you grew up in, I know that well enough. Are you sure there's nothing in your history that might help here? It seems like you might be eminently qualified."

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. I broke into some tricky places before but this is beyond my experience. Though one thing we used to do would be to use misdirection and subterfuge, people don't fight back unless they realize they're being attacked. If you can make them think something else is going on, then you can take them by surprise. Like a stage magician's trick, draw attention away from what you're really doing with some other thing people recognize, make them all look at this and they forget what you're doing with your other hand."

Chase thought about it a bit, cocking his head to the side. "You know… I think I might actually have an idea. Okay, bear with me now…"

XXXXX

A few days passed before they received the go ahead from command. The southern army was ready, a rickety amalgam of whatever forces could be brought to bear in the time available from what he knew, though he didn't have any idea about the exact composition of the force. So long as it did the job he really didn't care.

"Sun's going down." Sawbones noted, rummaging through his medical bag to get everything they needed. "I would just like to say that, in my non-professional opinion, this is the most absurd idea I have ever heard of."

Chase shrugged, having already discarded his armor, now taking off his shirt. "Truth be told it's the most absurd idea I've ever come up with. Not that I'm really known for my intricate plans, they tend to be along the lines of… shoot the thing." He shrugged.

Tony came back in, dragging a dead mole rat. "Right, I think this should do. I just hope this Stealthboy holds out long enough." The prewar stealth tech was very useful, but it had been temperamental when it was new. The devices themselves prone to problems and the proprietary power cells made for them often had uncertain battery lives, but it was always on the short side.

"No need to stick around, wait until the right moment, get in and get out." Chase advised. "Right, everyone is ready, and it's time to do this."

Tony shook his head, drawing his machete and stabbing the dead mole rat. "I don't know if any of us are going to survive tonight. But at least out of all of us I'll still have my dignity."

Chase scoffed and rolled his eyes.

XXXXX

Paladin Kruse was standing guard at the Black Mountain facility, sighing to himself and shifting a bit. He thought that since the lockdown ended and they had moved to the surface that his life might get more interesting, but it turned out his duties remained unchanged. Stand around looking impressive by something that someone higher up considered important. However now he had the exciting opportunity to guard a door on top of a mountain, which was so wonderfully different from guarding a door in an underground bunker. At least it had a better view, the sweep of the Mojave during the day, the glittering starry sky at night. This facility was important, he knew full well what was here, but even so there was only one squad of paladins defending the position, a paltry dozen or so warriors to hold the summit.

But that was the situation everywhere, as far as he knew. The region Hardin had claimed as their new fiefdom was large and filled with people who had not embraced them. Kruse could hardly blame those people, it was a violent and unexpected transition, he wouldn't have welcomed someone showing up to his home and pushing people around with a gun. Still, he couldn't agree with the exiles either, you didn't just up and leave when you got frustrated. Loyalty and duty were important, even if you didn't agree, you did what you were supposed to do and made the best of it. Even when that meant you stood beside a door for hours on end thinking about where your career as a warrior had gone wrong to get you stuck there. He was so occupied with his thoughts that he didn't notice the movement at first, but quickly snapped to look at it, squinting through his T-51b's visor and wishing he had nightvision.

"You there, halt!" He commanded as he saw a lone figure rushing towards them, arms flailing. He raised his RCW, pointing the rapid fire laser weapon at the approaching figure.

"Please don't shoot!" The man cried in a breathless, shaky voice. "Please you have to help me!"

Kruse kept his weapon trained on the young man's chest as he got closer, eventually half tumbling to a stop. He was in his mid-20s at the latest, brown hair and brown eyes, wearing an old green jacket and jeans. "Why art thou here?" He demanded.

"Please." The man gasped again, catching his breath. "There's something out there, some kind of monster, it's attacking my friends and" There was a piercing, inhuman shriek somewhere out in the darkness and Kruse snapped his weapon up, scanning the darkness. He could see dim movement in the distance but the darkness made it hard to pick out.

"Garrison, this is Kruse." He radioed. "We may have a situation, sit tight." Another paladin walked up, flicking the safety off on his plasma rifle.

"What's going on? Who's the local?"

Kruse shrugged. "Says there's some kind of monster out there that attacked him, I heard something but" there was another shriek, closer this time and both paladins jumped a bit, shifting into combat stances on instinct. "Stay sharp, might be some kind of mutant." He looked down at the cowering civilian, shaking his head. "Listen sirrah, you wait right over there, by the wall. No wretched beast will breach this base, you have my word." The young man seemed to calm a little and nodded, walking.

"My friends, they're right behind me." He said as he shuffled over.

Kruse nodded, raising his weapon and aiming off into the darkness, seeing figures approaching. "Stand and declare yourself!" He shouted in a booming, amplified voice.

"It's right behind us!" He heard someone shout. There were three of them in all, but the furthest one back seemed to trip and fall as he came out from behind the rocks. He screamed, scrabbling at stones as something dragged him back around the corner. The screams grew louder and then cut out as another inhuman, wailing cry pierced the night.

"This is paladin Kruse, we have a situation! Unknown creature on the southern perimeter!" He fired a few warning shots, pumping red beams into the dirt near the corner to hopefully dissuade whatever it was from poking its head out. He turned to his companion. "You, get these civilians inside the storehouse and keep them safe, I'll find this thing." He ordered and took off running. He turned the corner with his weapon up but there was nothing there, just a patch of damp, bloody earth and signs of a struggle, no body or bits of one anywhere. Whatever had done this was just gone.

"Report!" He barked into the radio.

"Negative at the west pass."

"Nothing at the high village."

"No sign at the compound, I don't see any… wait, sir there's a blood splatter here!"

"Where?" He demanded, turning in place.

"Inside the compound, by the storage shed. Shit, it looks like someone killed something here, there's blood everywhere!"

Kruse cursed under his breath and ran back into the compound, seeing another paladin standing by a spot on the wall. The concrete was splattered with what looked like arterial blood spray, bloody handprints on the wall.

"Sound off, is everyone alright?" One by one everyone sounded that they were fine. "So who the hell bought it here?" He demanded, pointing at the fresh blood trickling down the wall.

"Contact on the western approach!" Someone shouted over the radio as he heard weapons fire in the near distance. "Shit I saw it, how many of these things are there!"

"Description, did you see it clearly?" He asked, head on a swivel as he suddenly became aware of all the places something might hide nearby.

"Humanoid, didn't seem to be wearing armor, drenched in blood and shrieking like the damned."

"A ghoul?" He asked quickly.

"No sir, I don't think so. I could see skin, and it had hair. I think, it's very fast!" Again he heard the shrieking wail of whatever this was, and nearby too. He looked, catching a glimpse of a humanoid figure crouched on a rock below. He opened fire, red bolts lighting it up enough to see a pale human figure, white skin stained with dark blood and shrieking in anger as it scampered behind a rock.

"Sir!" He heard Duran ask from inside the communication's building. "Do we call command?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm not having Hardin breathing down my neck because we couldn't deal with one mutant freak. Duran, Michaels, get out of that bunker and help us find this thing."

"But sir, the computers, shouldn't we,"

"I highly doubt this thing can type and we need every pair of eyes up and moving. This place is too big for us to lock down without help, this thing already got inside the lines and possibly killed someone so get off your asses and help us kill this thing!"

The two paladins rushed out of the door and down to the ground, sweeping about with their weapons. "So what's the plan?"

"Solidify the perimeter and hold on, this thing can't hurt us in armor so just keep your eyes open and stay focused, if you see it, shoot it!" He ordered, right before something impacted the back of his head with a ping. He whirled around. "What!"

"I think someone threw a rock." One of the other paladins noted. They whirled about as they heard some rocks sliding down an incline in the near distance. "It's going to be a long night." Kruse said glumly.

XXXXX

In the end, morning rose with no further loss of life. They had tried hunting it down, but when they sent people out it made gaps in their lines and this thing would slip through the blind spots. One time they heard it howling and banging on the storage shed door with a rock, and he thought he heard the door to the communications building open at one point but a search revealed nothing. Neither had they found the remains of any of the creature's victims, seeming to indicate that it dragged them off somewhere. Eventually the thing seemed to give up, howling and shrieking in anguish from the distance with a noise to put the hairs on end, before it finally slinked back off into whatever nightmare pit had spawned it before sunrise.

"You should be safe now." He told the three survivors as the sun rose over the Mojave. "I would advise traveling west to the town of Goodsprings, it is well defended. You should be safe there."

The tired, haggard looking travelers nodded, they had been on edge all night. "Thanks." The brown haired one said.

Kruse nodded. "Think nothing of it sirrah, 'tis a paladin's duty." He said proudly as they walked away.

As they left, another of his guards walked up. "Tis a paladin's duty?" He asked wryly.

Kruse shot him a dirty look through his visor. "If we're going to live here don't you think we should at least try to make the locals like us?"

"You sound like some old movie, thee's and thou's and art's." He chuckled.

Kruse shoved him lightly on the shoulder. "Only when talking to the wastelanders!" He protested. "It can't hurt to play up our image a bit! Besides, it makes my job a little more exciting." Paladin Kruse sighed, before returning to the latest instance of his long glorious career of standing next to a door while looking imposing.

XXXXX

The team met up back in the cave, Chase and Tony looking up from where they were sitting. Tony was in his usual gear, but Chase had stripped down to shorts and was using a washcloth to try and wash dried mole rat blood off his chest. "I think that went about as well as could be hoped for." He said happily. "Magician's trick right?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah, get them worried about the obvious threat so they don't miss the subtle one they would otherwise catch. Using blood packs to make the sprays was a clever trick if I say so myself, though I almost had a heart attack when that one searched the base, I think he heard me open the door. But I got the job done."

"You disabled the targeting system?" Royce asked hopefully.

"Better, I cut the local system there off from the network and set it to run in offline mode. It'll look normal until they try to actually fire it, then they'll just get a 'no connection' error message. The fire controls are now hardwired into a little radio transmitter. We just sent the frequency back to command. It's a little awkward but basically it means command can control the satellite now. Not that they can make any quick adjustments or use the mutli, target systems, but just pointing and shooting one target is possible."

"Can't they figure it out though?" Royce prodded.

Tony shrugged. "If they looked for it, the alterations are pretty obvious if you actually open the box and look at the innards, but the big operation starts what, this afternoon? They won't have the time to find it."

Chase nodded. "I think it worked fine, from what I hear the army is already on the march. We need to get prepped so we can pitch in by the time the battle gets up here."

Royce nodded, smiling at him. "I think you played your part very well by the way, you make a very convincing shrieking monster."

Chase chuckled, scrubbing blood off his arms. "Stripped to the waist and covered in fresh blood, almost enough to make me feel nostalgic."

XXXXX

In the McCarran command center, Alaric grinned as he read over the report from the infiltrated M-SOC team. "I like these guys." He chuckled before turning back to the strategic display. The army was formed up on the southern border, just outside the scouting range of the Brotherhood's southern forces. They were poised to sweep up along Highway 95 through Novac and up to Helios, while his own forces attacked from the north. It was a long way from the southern edge of the Mojave to Helios, but the Brotherhood was spread thin out there, so hopefully they wouldn't be able to provide stiff resistance to a determined attack.

"Tell the southern forces to begin their advance." He ordered, waving to a radio operator. "We will hold off the northern offensive for as long as we can, get our troops as close as possible before we show our hand, hopefully we'll overtake the southern Brotherhood before they can get a distress call off, at least at first. Blitzkrieg is the order of the day gentlemen. Are those Brotherhood exiles I requested in position?"

An operator confirmed something before turning and nodding to him. "Yes sir, standing by at Hoover."

Alaric nodded. "Good, good, have them on standby to deploy."

Boone overlooked the map, nodding. "Everything seems set up. I take it you're going out again?"

Alaric chuckled, resting a hand on the hilt of his axe where it hung at his hip. "Of course I am, not really much choice in the matter really. I've got to be at the forefront of this fight, you know I can't stand sitting something like this out. Besides, with you here I'm sure the situation is well in hand."

The Commander nodded, but Alaric could sense a hint of reproach in his friend's attitude. He donned his helmet, readying to head out. "Don't worry about me my friend, I won't let Hardin and his tin soldiers put me down, would be an ignoble end to this adventure to go out like that." So he went out again, walking south along Highway 95 to meet up with his forces there, standing amongst the vanguard of Exiled Knights, Securitrons and supermutants. The attack would have multiple prongs, attacking south along the Highway as well as from Hoover, and hopefully getting the southern army close enough to gut their defenses from behind. The strike would launch simultaneously against Hoover and Boulder City, smothering the Brotherhood's defenses with weight of numbers and the speed of their attack.

He checked updates on his Pipboy's screen, nodding in satisfaction as the icons representing his southern army group began moving north, a blunt wedge of troops following the highway up from Searchlight and sweeping over the surrounding flatlands. Hardin's forces hadn't been very interested in that area considering there weren't any real resources to sieze, evidently they hadn't been planning on an attack from the south with Vegas on their northern doorstep. One thing that still concerned him was the location of the captured howitzers, he wasn't entirely sure where the Brotherhood had taken them, but he did know that his own people had made off with most of the ammunition before the Brotherhood came for the guns, so their capabilities were very limited. They were still quite deadly but Hardin couldn't keep them at arm's length for any length of time with the few shells he had.

Alaric's armored fingers made little 'clickety click' noises as he drummed them on his leg armor, watching as his troops neared Novac. He gave the go-ahead to the Knights at Hoover, telling them to commence their operation as the battle loomed closer. Any second now, any second now Hardin would call him up and demand to know what was going on, acting outraged and making threats. Reports came in from the south, shots fired near Novac, his troops were engaging the Brotherhood defenses there, the battle in earnest was about to begin.

A voice crackled over his helmet radio, one of the McCarran operators. "Sir, we're receiving a message from Helios, it's Hardin. He's demanding to speak to you."

"He is? Give me a moment I'm in the middle of something." Alaric responded, fiddling with his power fist, polishing an imagined scuff on the super strong metal.

"Uh, sir, he's growing very insistent." The operator said in growing concern.

Alaric kicked a clod of dirt with his armored boot, before he rested his hands on his hips and took a long, deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. "Alright." He said after another moment's consideration. "Put him through." He made sure to dial down the volume on his headset.

"Alaric!" Hardin shouted over the airwaves. "What the flying fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Hardin, lovely to hear from you. How's your day going so far?"

"Don't play with me boy, I'm seeing troops moving on Novac, I'm losing people on the southern border, I told you not to bring your army across the line!"

"What? Army? I'm sorry, some of my people were wanted to pick up some souvenirs. You know, the little dinosaur figures? You didn't start shooting at them did you?"

Hardin's voice was a deadly growl. "Insolent whelp, I didn't think you were actually stupid enough to try this. I'll do it, I'll light your whole damn city on fire."

"Hardin," Alaric chided. "If you don't stop these unwarranted threats I'm going to have to declare war on you on general principle."

"That's it!" Hardin sounded positively deranged as he ranted over the radio. "I warned you, you bastard, this is on your head. I'm going to find you, and hang your head from the Helios tower as a warning, and a reminder of how your stupidity cost a city." With that dramatic end, Hardin presumably ordered the Archimedes system to fire.

Alaric tapped his boot on the ground, looking up to the sky as if trying to tell if it was going to rain or not. Nothing happened. "Uh, Hardin." He asked cautiously. "Hardin, should, should something be happening right now?" Silence over the radio. "Hardin, are you having… difficulties?"

"What. Did. You. Do." Hardin growled over the radio.

"I don't think this is my problem, but don't be too hard on yourself if you can't… you know. It's been a stressful week, this kind of thing happens all the time. You know there's a pill that can help with that."

"Archimedes!" Hardin demanded, back to shouting. "What did you do to Archimedes?"

Alaric pretended to think for a moment. "You mean the Greek astronomer?"

"No you idiot, the laser!"

"Oh!" Alaric said in mock understanding. "Oh you mean this death ray thing?" He asked, pulling out a detonator and pulling the trigger, watching in satisfaction as a blue-white beam speared down from the heavens to impact somewhere west of Helios. "No, I don't know what happened to that at all."

In a move that Alaric found wonderfully ironic, he had studied Hardin's strategy against his forces and learned from it. Really it was one of the oldest military concepts there was, but the rogue paladin had employed it well. Divide and conquer, separate your enemy's forces and prevent them from organizing a proper resistance to your troops. Hardin had cut the Mojave in half, utilizing the natural choke points given by the Colorado River and the mountainous region he occupied to prevent him from properly moving his troops. Now it was Alaric's turn to use that same concept with his counterattack.

The Archimedes laser was quite a potent weapon, but it couldn't destroy an army on the field. Sure you could drag the beam around a bit to increase the number of targets hit, but even so the casualties it could create was less than an artillery strike or a bombing run. Besides they didn't have the multi-target system available with their jury rigged control system. Instead, the laser had been directed at unoccupied terrain, in the Scorpion Gulch region, blasting the cliffs and creating a rockslide which blocked the narrow pass through the mountainous region. The fallen rocks would take time to clear away, time the Brotherhood didn't have. If anyone wanted to get between Helios and Hidden Valley they would have to clamber over the slopes of Black Mountain with no clear path or trail, a slow and treacherous route to be sure. Secondly, Alaric ordered a large detachment of the Securitron force to make a cavalry charge down the Long 15 towards Primm, with the hopes of cutting the garrison at Goodsprings off from the rest of the Brotherhood to the east, and by controlling the highway place Hidden Valley and Black Mountain under siege.

That, combined with the wedge his southern army was driving up through Novac, would isolate the brotherhood from their compatriots. The garrison at Primm would be boxed in by Securitrons to the north and the army to the east. The occupying force at Novac was hopelessly overwhelmed and would fall within the hour, Black Mountain and Hidden Valley were both isolated by geography and the army of robots watching their only escape route. That left Helios with only Boulder City directly to the East to fall back on for support, and he already had plans in place to deal with the riverside town.

"Johnson." He radioed, the old Enclave officer was now in command of his troops at Hoover itself. "Commence your attack on Boulder City, and tell the Knights Veronica lent you to begin their operation as well."

The man acknowledged the order and confirmed, the army was moving out. He took a deep breath, there really wasn't anything left to do but to march forth and let the battle be joined. Even with all his plans and surprise maneuvers, it all still boiled down to taking this army and marching down along the open highway and storming Helios. Cut off, off balance and lacking their trump card, the Brotherhood was still dangerous and determined, and Hardin ready to fight to the bitter end. He hefted his Vindicator, looking off down the open road. "Come on then." Was all he said this time as they began their advance.

The massed force swept down the road towards the El Dorado lakebed and Helios beyond, crossing over into the Brotherhood's claimed territory. His Securitrons were at the leading edge of the force, backed up by supermutants and Exile Knights, with the general infantry following behind. It seemed like a repeat of the assault on Goodsprings, but Alaric was under no illusions that the battle would be over that quickly this time. Like some kind of twisted parody of that attack, Alaric heard the thump of guns firing in the distance.

"Incoming!" He heard someone shout as the arcing trails of artillery shells cut through the air, slamming into the ground in plumes of smoke and debris. Power armor and thick mutant hide fared well against shrapnel, but those too close to the impacts were thrown about like rag dolls, and the light infantry in the rear was being shredded with each impact. They don't have enough shells, Alaric told himself. A few shots per gun, that's all they have, just a handful of shells. They can bloody us but nothing more.

"Press on!" He shouted, voice amplified by his helmet. "Their guns run dry, forward!" The howl of shells filled his ears, the muffled 'krump' of the guns firing and the clatter of shrapnel pinging off his armor. At least it drowned out the screams of the dying. But he was right, the guns fell silent after a brief salvo and did not start up again.

He could hear gunfire to the east, reports filtering through from command informing him that the task force from Hoover was engaging the Brotherhood at Boulder City, slamming into the defenders who had dug themselves into the rubble of the ruined town. They were in position to put up stiff resistance, but he had them outmaneuvered. Veronica had agreed to send a detachment of Knights to Hoover to join in the attack, but they wouldn't be marching along the road. They would use their sealed power armor like rebreathers to make their way under the surface of the Colorado River, to make landfall at Boulder Beach, attacking the town's unprotected flank and surrounding the defenders there. There would be no reinforcements from Boulder City, leaving Helios to stand alone.

"Hostiles Sighted." Droned a Securitron as hostile fire started to flash from hills and quickly built fortifications, the attacking army quickly going to ground behind whatever cover could be found as laser and plasma fire strobed out across the desert to meet them. They were still a ways from Helios, and now the battle had been joined.

Alaric hugged the terrain as best he could, the open desert didn't offer much cover but he made use of whatever dips and bumps in the terrain there was. The Brotherhood was shooting from up ahead, hastily built defensive fortifications constructed of whatever detritus they could find offering little more than concealment with the power of the weapons being thrown around. He let out a long, shrieking burst from the Vindicator, the stream of rounds tearing through a sandbag wall to stitch over the chest of the Paladin taking cover behind it, making the unfortunate warrior spasm and drop, but stubbornly returning to shoot.

The supermutants were armed with whatever heavier weapons he could get, mostly old light machineguns that they carried like light rifles, the hails of rounds they spat out filling the air with hot lead. Exiled Knights fired with LAERs, lasers, plasma guns and gauss rifles, setting barricades on fire and turning metal armor to scorched and twisted metal or shorted out scrap. But this was an attack against a well dug in enemy, and the cost was beginning to tell. The Paladins fought from foxholes and barricades, gunning down the assaulting forces as they rushed to take ground, falling back in good order from one position to the next, giving ground to stay alive and continue to bleed the attacking forces for every inch of ground.

Alaric's eyes were spinning in his skull, tracking targets arrayed in front of him, mind running constant targeting calculations, range to target, movement and recoil, timing bursts, counting the rounds left in the ammo pack on his back, belt feed removing the need to reload individual cans. Certainly a little more bulky but he couldn't afford the time to reload in a meat grinder like this. He rose from cover but fell back into it when something slammed into his chest, denting the armor and driving him down. Gauss rifle slug, he thought on instinct, calculating a probable firing point based off the angle of impact. There, high ground to the west, the rocky foothills overlooking Helios, sharpshooters.

"Daisy, strafing run on the following coordinates." He ordered, relaying the position of the Brotherhood marksmen who were laying into his troops at long range. As he heard the chatter of props Alaric began to run from his cover towards the foothills, optical scanners painting the shooters as he rushed at them. The Vertibird swept low and fast over the terrain, popping out from behind the mountains to rake the riflemen with laser fire, throwing them off balance. Stray rounds pinging off his armor, Alaric closed on the high ground with the intent to silence the guns there, calling for some cover fire.

It was said by some witnesses that Alaric dodged bullets during that charge, as he didn't seem to be hit nearly as often as he should have been given his mad dash across open ground towards multiple different defensive positions in the course of one day. While his reflexes were very fast, he wasn't fast enough to dodge a supersonic projectile, however it was easy to mistake what he was doing for dodging bullets. In reality, he was dodging shots before they were ever fired. His vision was awash with overlays marking the position of the shooters, and traced lines from each gun barrel showing where they were aiming, to a certain degree of precision. With his cybernetically boosted body giving him enhanced agility, he was able to stay one step ahead of the marksmen as he closed towards them, the big rifles they were using too unwieldy to track him as he bobbed and weaved, dancing just out of their crosshairs as he got closer and closer.

Finally his momentum carried him up and over the lip of the high ground and up to the level with the sharpshooters as they scrambled to grab close combat weapons. Two of them were chewed apart by the minigun before they could react. Another managed to grab a big submachinegun and Alaric recoiled as a burst of 12.7mm rounds slammed into his chest. Too heavy, too close, not agile enough to avoid it so he just tanked the shots and mashed the firing stud, stitching a line of 4.7mm rounds over the Paladin's belly and chest. A chattering sound behind him made him turn as another enemy swung a ripper at him, teeth squealing as they raked across his chest, seeking a weak point. He keyed his implants again, jumping backwards and firing point blank, tearing the chest open before turning as more shots slammed into him from behind.

He fired, but the Vindicator ran dry, far earlier than his mental count should have allowed for. A quick glance down showed the ripper had severed the ammo feed and rendered the weapon useless. He dropped it and his hands flew to the LAER he carried with preternatural speed, snapping it up and firing quick, precise shots as he dropped to a crouch. It was over fast, another lethal situation that barely lasted ten seconds. He stood up among the dead, replacing the microfusion cell in the LAER and dropping the useless ammo pack from his back, taking a moment to check over the damage to his armor and himself. The chestpiece was heavily damaged, the gauss rifle slug had caved it in and lodged inside, the 12.7mm rounds left dented pockmarks over his upper torso. Thankfully his iron infused skin had dispersed the shock to avoid internal trauma. He placed a hand to his chest, he could feel metal pressing against his skin under the armor, the gauss rifle slug had nearly punched clean through, nearly penetrated his body, a hit like that might have killed even him.

He shook his head, bringing himself out of the moment of mortality and continuing on. Reports from the western front were promising, the Securitrons were making headway and keeping the various garrisons suppressed so they could not offer aid, but the robots were suffering further casualties. The Brotherhood was fighting defensively from rocky terrain and the big robots couldn't really take cover, they were being picked off by defensive fire. The southern force was… somewhere. The southern front seemed to have totally broken down into roving bands of fighters from both sides, turning the whole southeast Mojave into one big swirling skirmish zone, nobody was sure what was where anymore.

He caught his breath, keying his radio to check in. "Johnson, how's the situation on your end? We're almost to Helios here."

"Sir, stiff resistance but the flanking attack has hit them hard, they're dug in like ticks but we'll shift them."

"Good, good." Alaric nodded, stretching and wincing slightly as he felt the Phoenix implant start to repair his body's damage. He opened a little pouch on his hip and a half dozen Valence Accentuators flew out to dance about his wounds in geometric patterns, speeding his healing further. "Just keep them pinned, we're going in for the decapitation strike." He glanced towards Helios, nodding to himself before kneeling by his discarded minigun, examining the ammo feed belt. He grimaced, totally ruined, there was no way he could repair this on the field. He'd have to retrieve the weapon later.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on edge and his hand flew to the LAER a moment too late as the shimmering outline of a massive figure stood over him, the watery silhouette breaking in a flash of rippling light as the paladin materialized, swinging his super sledge towards the kneeling Alaric. He pivoted just enough to turn the brunt of the impact to where it glanced off his shoulder, but the impact still sent him reeling and stumbling as white hot agony flashed down his left arm, making him grunt and curse. The paladin's stealthboy hid him again a moment later, more watery outlines dancing around him as he staggered to his feet.

"Sir, are you alright?" Johnson asked over the radio.

"Assassins!" He shouted in a panicked voice as he heard another decloaking behind him, ducking just in time to avoid a super sledge taking his head off. He saw an outline, light catching in the sun and fired, clipping the figure. The electrical discharge shorted out its stealthboy and rendered the figure visible but before he could follow up another impact slammed into his side, making him cry out in pain. He grabbed his axe in his left hand and swung blind, activating the blade as he did so, rewarded with a scream as someone's arm went spinning through the air. Alaric keyed his GRX implant again, dumping everything he had left into one massive jolt. He held the lightweight energy rifle like a pistol and worked the trigger as fast as he could, pumping shot after shot at anything that moved nearby, downing two attackers before the power cell ran dry and he dropped the gun, taking his axe in both hands.

Time flowed back to normal as he slashed at another rippling shadow, hearing a muffled curse. Alaric growled. "Come on you bastards, you think a trick of the light scares me? I've killed monsters that refuse to die, sent two armies running in fear, made old world gods blink and personally rained nuclear fire down on my enemies. I was double tapped and buried deep, but I clawed my way out of the grave and walked across the whole Mojave just to kill the bastard in his own casino. I stormed the Fort and shot Caesar in his own goddamn tent and fought side by side with the Burned Man to send a whole warrior tribe running in terror. I've been shot, burned, irradiated, poisoned and cut enough to kill all of you together three times over and I walked it all off. I have personally killed more people with these two hands than a tactical nuke. So if you think your parlor tricks will let you take me in a rush then come on, let's see who's the first to die. I don't have all day."

The figures… hesitated, Alaric grinned behind his helmet. Come on, think on it for a moment, run out the clock on those stealthboys you're wearing, just a few more seconds… But they seemed to gain their resolve again after a moment and attacked again, rushing forward in a mass of formless shapes. Alaric grunted and swung in a defensive pattern, deflecting a hammerhead that swung towards him and lashing out with a return swing that sent his opponent staggering and shorted out his stealth field, but they were on him, how many more? Three, four, he couldn't tell, they blended together into some chimeric form of barely visible limbs and weapons, his injuries slowed him, his body taxed to the limit, armor damaged and weighing him down, he raised his axe with a defiant cry on his lips.

"WOOF!" Sounded a deafening bark that hit like a solid impact, sending the shadowy figures staggering and their bodies sparking into visibility as their stealth systems were fried as one. A huge shape barreled into the midst of them, sending armored bodies toppling in all directions. Alaric didn't pause to think, hacking and slashing at his off balance opponents, dispatching the two that staggered near him. He looked up to the third to see a huge creature, half fur and half shining metal grabbing the remaining Paladin in its great metal jaws, picking the warrior up and thrashing him about like a rag doll as the beast shook its head, before throwing the armored figure down the hillside to clatter to a halt on the ground below.

Alaric looked up to the huge cyberdog that turned back towards him, panting with his tongue hanging out happily. "Gabe." He said in mild shock, still wired from the near death experience. The giant cyberdog made a happy yip. He stood there for a few moments longer before he reached up, scratching the giant hound behind the ear. "Good boy."

Alaric assured Johnson that he was alright and to continue with his attack, looking out from the high overlook to the surrounding area to see how the battle was turning. His troops had been pressing the Brotherhood hard but seemed to have run up against a brick wall, the Brotherhood's final line of defense before Helios itself, a row of hastily dug trenches manned with Paladins with heavy weapons. However as he watched the tide was turning.

A horde of scuttling roboscorpions were coming up from the south, tails flicking up and energy weapons sparking as they advanced on the Brotherhood's undefended rear. The fortifications were all built with a northern attack in mind, now they faced a battle on two fronts. The scorpions were a good fit for this kind of attack, their flat hulls hugged the ground and presented a minimal target profile that could hide in any minor dip in the terrain while their long tails gave them good shooting positions. They would rear up on their legs to their full possible height for a moment, shoot down into the trenches and drop back to the ground again, large ones laying down cover for their smaller brethren who were already swarming over the trenches and snapping at legs and ankles with Saturnite edged pincers. A wave of cyberdogs were following close behind, charging in a great roiling mass of fur and metal.

Alaric keyed his radio. "Veronica." He called, his friend leading the Brotherhood Exiles here personally. "The southern army has arrived, give them a few minutes to weaken the defenses and then hit them!" He looked down into the compound below, optics zooming in and scanning the ground. He saw a figure walking with his head uncovered. Hardin sneered as he looked out over the battlefield before he jammed his helmet on and briskly walked to the Helios collection tower. "I see Hardin!" He reached for one of the fallen gauss rifles but too late, by the time he raised the scope the rogue Paladin was already inside. "Damn, he's in the tower. I don't like it."

"He can't fire the weapon from there, it's out of power anyway… unless he's going to try to break it or something out of spite." Veronica offered. "If he destroys the energy collection system…"

"Then we'll lose our biggest source of power and the Archimedes system will be totally useless." He concluded. "Leaving our infrastructure weakened and robbing us of a sustainable strategic asset. Well, can't let that happen." He checked himself over, wincing. His armor was a mess and he wasn't sure how badly hurt he was inside it, but he certainly hurt. Bullet holes and major dents covered the armor, the right flank was partially caved in and the left side of the neck guard was twisted and partially ripped off. Still functional but clunky, and his GRX implant would take hours to refill. He had his axe and pulse gun, all he needed was a little time.

"What are you going to do?" Veronica asked in a worried voice as Alaric stabbed a total of three stimpacks into some of the holes torn or shot into his armor.

"Oh, something suitably dramatic." He quipped before tossing the spent medication away.

"Alaric… I don't like the sound of that." She cautioned.

"Just give me some time, I'm going after Hardin. I'm going to raise a little hell inside the compound and soften them up a bit for you to come charging in. Oh, please don't tell Arcade, you know how he worries."

Alaric grunted and rolled his shoulders, making sure nothing was dislocated or broken before he walked over to Gabe, patting him affectionately. "Nice timing boy, but I need your help some more." The big dog barked excitedly and Alaric grinned as he grabbed onto the armor and hoisted himself up on top of the huge cyberdog's back. He grabbed a good handhold with his left hand, brandishing the glowing energy axe in his right, clicking his heel against the metal armor and sending the cyborg hound charging down the rocky slopes like a missile, charging straight at the fence.

Some of the Paladins rushing about inside the defensive line saw him coming and looked on in horrified awe as Gabe barreled straight for the fence before he jumped, cybernetic legs launching him over the top as a figure in blood drenched black power armor waved a glowing axe. "CRY HAVOC!" Alaric shouted as they landed amongst the shocked defenders.

The defending Paladins barely had time to react as Gabe and his rider tore through them. Sonic cannon barks bowled armored figures over, snapping Saturnite jaws punched through armor and slashes with the glowing axe split helmets open as Alaric ran rampant through the Helios compound. He didn't stay long, two quick circuits around the field to sow some carnage before he leaped off near the door to the central tower. "Sic 'em boy!" He ordered, setting the yapping hound on the scattered and disoriented defenders as the defensive line began to waver and fracture. No time to lose though, so he drew his pulse gun and went inside, axe in his right hand.

He swept into the building, pistol up and scanning the room, but there wasn't any activity here. No defenders, no automated defenses set up, the place was quiet. Hardin must have already been higher up with the head start he had. Knowing any delay might be disastrous, Alaric took off running through the corridors and over the catwalks he'd passed so long ago in much different circumstances. Soon he was walking out onto the catwalk atop the Helios tower, hearing footsteps on the grating ahead. He crept down the ramp and quickly ducked into cover as a plasma bolt shot past his head.

"Alaric!" The rogue Paladin shouted from somewhere across from him. "I didn't think you would have made it this far, I underestimated you."

"Many have." He shouted back, trying to pinpoint Hardin from his voice. If he could keep him talking long enough then he might get some backup if they could storm the facility fast enough. With the amount of gunfire he was hearing below still he found it unlikely. "Few of them lived to learn from the mistake."

"You're a legend, I'll give you that much." The Paladin responded, Alaric edging around the support strut to try to catch a glance only for Hardin to potshot again with a plasma pistol to send him back into cover. "Bigger than life, something out of myths. Thing about legends though, they only live for as long as people believe in them."

"Are you going somewhere with this, or are we just going to shout about our ideals before the climactic fight?" Alaric asked, hoping to play on that temper problem and get Hardin sloppy. "Because I think I've used up the entire cliché budget with the army of robotic laser scorpions."

Instead of the raging cry, Hardin just chuckled darkly. "The thing about legends," He continued, "is that they lose all their power when people stop believing in them. People think you're some kind of demigod, an unstoppable force, like the old heroes people tell stories about around campfires. But you're flesh and blood underneath that fancy armor and flashy gear, and for all your gimmicks and showmanship you're just a man."

"A man who's destroyed entire cultures, turned the tide of multiple wars and circumvented your every defense, but technically true." Alaric pointed out, trying to tell where Hardin was moving based on the sound of quiet footsteps. "Do you think you can kill me Hardin? After everything and everyone I've come through to get here? Do you really think you're going to be the one who can take me out?"

Again the low, hollow laughter. "I'm certainly going to try. But in the end I don't have to kill you, just hurt you, and be seen to hurt you. I'm going to make you bleed, and take your prize away from you. And everyone will see that you're just another fallible human being, just a man. And then you lose, your support will dry up, your country won't heal from this war without Helios, and the NCR or the Legion or someone else will come and cut your throat."

"Hardin," Alaric began in a tired tone. "As fascinating as this is, I must admit, I've only been stalling for time." He said in one more attempt to get Hardin to rush him in a blind rage.

"So have I." The Paladin chuckled as Alaric heard the clink of a grenade tumble across the catwalk towards him. He reacted as quick as he could, pivoting in place and throwing up an arm to shield his face, but there was no blast, only a wave of energy that washed over his armored form. Suddenly his armor felt much heavier and his HUD shorted out. Pulse grenade, he realized as he heard heavy, armored footfalls behind him.

He turned back, raising the pulse gun and firing, the energy blast clipping Hardin's shoulder, but the man was already swinging and the super sledge slammed into his left arm, denting the arm guard deeply and sending the pistol flying from his grip to land in the machinery out of reach.

"You talk way. Too. Much!" Hardin cursed, punctuating his words with repeated swings of the massive hammer. His left hand armor was caved in, he couldn't tell how badly, but he could still fight as his armor booted back up. Using the axe to parry as best he could, he took the heavy blows with repeated grunts as his armor was further battered.

He regained his footing, slashing with the axe and making Hardin flinch back to avoid a cut to the chest, letting Alaric catch his balance again. "Well it's worked for me so far." He quipped, launching forwards with a downwards chop. Hardin blocked on instinct with the haft of his hammer, the energy blade chopping through the solid metal shaft. Hardin reacted instantly, swinging with the hammer he still held by the shortened haft, making Alaric jump back to avoid the strike. A blur of movement drew his eye and he parried without thought, knocking the useless metal shaft Hardin had thrown over the railing. The movement however had given Hardin the time to draw what Alaric dimly recognized as a Glock 86 plasma pistol and open fire.

Alaric staggered as a flurry of plasma bolts slammed into his torso, the heat burning his chest through the abused plate and warping the metal. Hardin kept firing as he walked closer, emptying the power cell into Alaric's chest before swinging with the hammer, slamming into the weakened, hot metal of the chestplate and caving it in, a concave crater denting back into Alaric's chest and driving the air from his lungs, his body searing hot. The return swing was upwards and caught his helmet, snapping his chin up and sending the helmet skittering across the catwalk. Like a teetering tree, Alaric rocked back on his heels and fell hard on the floor, the left side of his face a bloody ruin from where the helmet and hammer had scraped right across it.

"Well, maybe I managed to kill you after all." Hardin said, actually sounding surprised. Alaric's mouth gaped, gasping for air that wouldn't come, his strength fading. "Suppose there's a limit to even what you're capable of though, guess fighting through an army of elite soldiers in power armor is a bit tougher than one of primitives in sports uniforms." Hardin towered over the writhing Alaric, shaking his helmeted head. "Still, a shame about your armor though, I would have loved to claim it for myself. Still, I suppose I could take a trophy…" The Paladin reached down, grabbing the top of the chestplate and stepping on Alaric's shoulder, pulling hard with his enhanced strength until he ripped it free.

Hardin looked at what was revealed and stepped back on reflex, his disgust audible even through the helmet. The heat from the plasma blasts had heated the chestplate to the point where it had burned into Alaric's skin, a large amount of which had come off with the metal when he'd ripped it off. He looked at the underside of the metal plate he held before throwing it away in disgust. He shook his head and turned away from the grisly sight, thankful his helmet's filters kept him from smelling the result of their battle. He was halfway to the door when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around.

"Thanks." Alaric grunted before his Saturnite power fist slammed into Hardin's helmet. "I was having trouble breathing." He drew back and punched him again as hard as he could. "With that damned chestplate." This time he broke Hardin's visor with the impact. "Crushing. My. Lungs!" He punctuated each word with another punishing impact, sending Hardin reeling.

"How? How!" The Paladin shouted, looking at the person, the thing before him. Half his face was a bloody mess, all the skin was missing off his chest but he seemed more enraged than in pain.

Alaric reached up to his damaged face, he couldn't see out of his left eye, so he reached up and felt at it before he removed the broken lens that obscured his vision. Behind the hollow glass eye was a cybernetic optic, lens glowing a dull red. "What does not kill you, makes you stronger." Alaric growled, launching forwards again. Hardin swung in desperation but Alaric just grabbed the hammer from his hand and threw it away. "And do you know how many things have tried to kill me?" He asked, his tone deadly calm. He grabbed Hardin by the collar and punched him over and over in the head, the piston of his power fist slamming into his head each time and rocking him back. The Paladin dropped to the floor and Alaric followed him down, beating on the helmet like a gong until it caved in completely.

He looked out over the battle below, seeing the Brotherhood lines break at last as his forces poured into the power plant. With one last cry he picked up the armored form of Hardin and hurled it over the railing to tumble through the air and slam into the ground far below. Utterly spent, Alaric stumbled backwards until he fell, groaning as he lay back and propped himself up against a support strut. He craned his head back, looking up at the clear blue sky as the warm sun fell on his many wounds. "I need a vacation." He chuckled, before passing out.

He came to a little while later as he heard footsteps on the catwalk. He looked over, seeing a figure in black Tesla Armor coming down the ramp, plasma caster in hand. "Oh my god." A familiar voice said. Arcade put down the heavy blaster and removed his helmet, standing over him as Veronica followed quickly, stopping and looking on in horror.

"I thought I asked you not to tell him." Alaric scolded from where he lay, trying to give her an admonishing look with half his face missing.

"What." Arcade said flatly. "I… I don't even begin to know how to treat this."

Alaric glanced down at the wound that was his entire chest. "What, this?" He shook his head. "It's just a flesh wound." He said dismissively.

Arcade kneeled by him as Veronica removed her helmet to look on in horror. "How, how is he still alive?"

"Really I feel fine." Alaric lied. "I'd like to go for a walk actually." He sighed as he saw his rather lame attempt at humor wasn't going anywhere. "Alright, listen. I'm not exactly… normal." He admitted. He rested his head against the warm metal behind him, sighing. "It was before we met, not long after I recovered from getting shot."

"You shouldn't be talking!" Arcade half shouted. "We need to get you to, get you. I don't even know."

He shook his head again. "No, really Arcade, I'm going to be fine, just relax. Anyway, it was right after I left Goodsprings. I was going along, minding my own business when I found this weird satellite thing that took me to Big MT, that's how I learned about it in the first place. While I was there I was the subject of some unwilling surgical procedures… but I eventually got that sorted out. Afterwards… I had them do some more work on me. Added to that the implants I got from the Followers and all of the various mutations I've picked up… Well I can recover from even this."

Arcade looked at his cybernetic eye, looking at the other one as well. "And this?"

He shrugged. "What with me being called on to fight a one man war I decided to get as many advantages as I could. My body has pretty much been totally rebuilt. This skin is armor about as good as Kevlar, synthetic muscle weave, advanced sensors behind perfect false eyes. I've even got a military grade targeting computer in my brain, it's why I can make snap shots so well, it calculates everything from windage to bullet drop to predicting movements. I know exactly how likely any possible shot is to hit. Pretty much all my internal organs are cybernetic replacements, about the only original thing I've got is my brain and it's a third computer by this point."

"You mentioned mutations?" Gannon asked. "Something to help with… this?"

"Oh, yeah, got lost for a second." He said, getting back on track. "I kind of metabolize radiation as far as I can tell, soak it up and heal myself with it, and purge it naturally. No Rad-X required. Including solar radiation. So as long as I'm in direct sunlight, or near a radiation source, or just plain irradiated to hell and gone, I'll heal from a lot. I've never tested it this much before… But between not having any fleshy organs to squish and my bones being reinforced with a super strong alloy, I'm able to take quite a pounding."

Arcade nodded. "Well… I would say that was impossible but you're still alive to debate the point so I'll have to concede. Still, I don't like just leaving you like this."

Veronica looked around. "We have to do something to help. Wait, he heals from sunlight? We're standing on a solar collection tower, couldn't we?"

Alaric nodded, and Gannon quickly put his helmet back on and walked over to the control panel, reactivating the system and reflecting the sunlight back up to the tower. Alaric groaned as he felt the sunlight hitting him at higher intensity, pain fading away. "Oh thank you, that's better… I'm going to need something new to wear I'm afraid." He looked down at his ruined armor. "Oh, how's the war going?" He asked, almost an afterthought.

Veronica stepped up. "The remaining Brotherhood survivors are scattered, either under siege or on the run… I'm going to try and talk them down. With Hardin dead they might just listen."

Alaric gave her a weak thumbs up. "Good, good you go do that please. I think I'll just lay here for a while and… grow skin back I guess." He grimaced, shifting in place a bit. "Arcade… please stay with me." He asked in a quieter voice, hunkering down for the arduous process of regenerating a large fraction of his skin. His part in the fighting was done, whether he liked it or not, so he restrained himself to giving instructions over the radio, and even that was against his doctor's orders. He lay there for hours, wincing as his body regrew itself. There was no fixing his missing glass eye though, he'd have to get a replacement from Big MT. Despite his protests, Arcade insisted he stop giving orders and get some sleep, which he eventually surrendered to, dropping back into a deep dreamless sleep high above the battlefield.

XXXXX

Paladin Kruse lowered the binoculars from his eyes. "I don't know, I can't see anything." He said, having been examining the smoke trail rising up from Helios One. His last orders from Hardin had been to repair the sabotage to the firing system, which he had, and then target the Archimedes laser on Helios itself to destroy it. He couldn't do that of course because the system needed almost a full day to recharge. But orders were orders weren't they? Then again, if they lost Helios and had to destroy it themselves, what was the point anymore?

"Sir, radio coming in." Another Paladin offered, handing him a headset.

"Thanks." He said, putting it on. "This is Paladin Kruse, go ahead."

The woman's voice that came over the radio was strained, tired, but determined. They had all seen a lot in recent days, it was understandable. "This is Acting Elder Veronica Santangelo." Kruse raised a brow in surprise. "I am calling to negotiate the end of this conflict."

"Why aren't you talking to Elder Hardin?" He asked, surprised she would be calling him.

"Hardin is dead." Veronica said simply, another shock. "I contacted Hidden Valley first, but Hardin did not appoint any second in command or commander there in his absence. With the recent casualties and the disruption of the chain of succession, then amongst Hardin's group you are the most senior officer. So it falls to you to negotiate this issue."

Kruse absently rubbed his brow, giving his second in command an unsure look, to which the other man could only shrug in dismay. "I see." He said after a long moment. "And what exactly is your proposal?"

"Stand down. This conflict needs to end, before any more people, any more of us die. Join together again, become part of the same brotherhood again like we're supposed to be. Or disband and leave this area forever. One way or another you can't be allowed to occupy territory and force people around."

He sighed deeply, looking out over the landscape below, seeing the smoke rising from Helios. "How many of us have died?" He asked fearfully.

The voice that came back was haunted, empty sounding. "Many. Too many. So many of us are gone, friends, family."

"The Chapter will not survive a split like this remaining." He thought out loud. "And… I assume that your friend from Vegas will be knocking down our door if we continue to resist." He considered the options, his position was untenable. If Helios had been taken then the majority of their forces were either dead or captured. They had been swept out of their positions in the southeast, and the various bases and garrisons were isolated, there was no way they could win. So, the options were simple. Fight and die, accept exile, or rejoin their brethren even after the bloodshed.

"I…" He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. "I accept your terms. My garrison will stand down. I lend my support to you and defer my authority to your position. Though I don't know if everyone else will follow." He let out a deep breath, having gained command authority and relinquished it again over the course of one conversation.

The answer was long in coming. "Thank you." Veronica finally said.

XXXXX

Ambassador McKinley looked over the report he had been writing. The last few days had been most interesting for him, even cooped up here as he was. Not that he really wanted to be out and about in the wasteland with power armored maniacs running around shooting each other. He had been assured that this was a purely internal concern and that there was nothing to be concerned about, but he wasn't convinced. Still, much valuable intelligence had been gained.

For one, when the Brotherhood had taken Helios One off of the power grid, there was a major deficit in the system, noticeable in the city. That should simply not have happened, the power generation capacity of the Mojave was far beyond its needs. That is, if Hoover Dam was in fact operational. If it was not… then Alaric was trying to fleece them for services he didn't even have to offer, at least not yet. Given that Hoover was on their side of the line the Brotherhood drew, there was no reason why they shouldn't have been getting power from it.

The other intelligence coup was what he was looking at right now, pictures taken by one of his Ranger escorts who had slipped out of the city to do a little 'sightseeing' unsupervised. He pulled up the pictures, looking them over one by one. There was Alaric, standing outside of the Helios One building, wearing civilian clothing and a pair of opaque Aviator shades, surrounded by the carnage he had wrought. And beside him, a man in the uniform of an Enclave officer, surrounded by a squad of soldiers in Enclave power armor and holding heavy weapons. McKinley grinned as he set the recon photos down. Yes, all things considered, this had been a lovely little war for the NCR.

===Author's note===

Woah, didn't realize this chapter would be this long until I got it all together. Just couldn't bring myself to stop and break up the action.

Well, quite a bit happening here, and another arc draws to a close while another rears its ugly head. Reviews appreciated.


	19. Picking up the Pieces

Alaric had spent the next several days resting at the Lucky 38 under the strict supervision of Arcade. He'd tried to get up to some actual work only for his doctor to glare at him until he meekly returned to bed. He had spent most of the time sunning himself on a couch, whatever internal damage was left was repairing itself quickly thanks to his radiation-charged body. Finally he'd managed to put his foot down and insist that he had actual work to do and needed to get to it, eventually managing to get Boone to come up and discuss the aftermath of the conflict.

"So, where do we stand?" Alaric asked as he started going over the reports on the war. "I know there were losses, how are we looking right now?"

Boone was his normally reserved self. "Army's strong, but we took some heavy hits. With the Securitrons being used as the tip of the spear in both phases of the conflict we lost about a third of the total force. We're looking to raise that number by salvaging workable parts from destroyed units, we think we can recoup a lot of those losses but."

"But we still don't have the capacity to actually make more units from scratch." Alaric finished, cradling a coffee mug in his hands. "Very troubling, considering that the Securitrons are our best military capability right now. Everything else is still in flux, Army is still training, we still don't have Vault 34 up and running to equip them."

Boone nodded. "Correct. At the present levels of Securitrons, I am no longer certain we could defend the Mojave against the Legion if they were to attack, not with them alone." The unspoken 'or the NCR' didn't need to be acknowledged. "But the Army is shaping up now. They've been bloodied, but they're also blooded. They're not just all rookies anymore and from what I hear Vault 34 is coming along nicely. They think they'll be done with the radiation cleanup in a week or so and get down to readying it for production. They're already looking through the Vault database, turns out the computers there have a lot of schematics for different weapons they could potentially produce. The team working there is selecting some options to send your way."

"Gun Runners eat your hearts out." Alaric commented with a chuckle. "That's good to hear. How are the new units from Big MT working out?"

Boone smirked for just a moment. "The roboscorpions are quite good, they go a long way towards making up for the losses among the Securitrons. Very different roles though, small target profile, very well armored but a little slow. We're using them for town defense and checkpoint enforcement while the Securitrons handle more patrol duties. If it involves defending a fixed position then the scorpions are great for it. The cyberdogs are also very useful, we're incorporating them into infantry units already. Speed, good armor, powerful bites and some of them have sonic attacks. They're very useful."

Alaric nodded, sipping coffee. "And how are the people faring? I never saw how much damage was done to the southern region."

Boone shrugged a fraction. "Well enough. Hardin wanted to rule the Mojave, not wreck it. He pushed some people around, took resources but they weren't gunning anyone down and worked hard to keep the towns and infrastructure intact. Some minor medical attention, a little light repair work and trying to get the supplies returned to their rightful owners, it's working out. A lot of resentment against the Brotherhood down there now, after everything that was done."

"Not surprising." Alaric sighed. "Speaking of, how is Veronica doing?"

"Veronica is now Elder Veronica." Boone said, making Alaric smile warmly. "She tried to hold an election but nobody stepped forward to oppose her. Can't say I'm surprised after everything she led them through. She's still holed up in Vault 3 with most all of her people."

"Vault 3? Not Hidden Valley?" He asked, surprised.

Boone nodded. "She doesn't seem to want to go back there. After everything that happened I'm not sure she feels comfortable being back in that place. Can't say I blame her." Alaric nodded. "From what I hear she's currently writing up a new outlook for her people. She's working on sweeping reforms for the Brotherhood, rebuilding them how she likes and waiting a bit for resentment and shock to die down."

"I'd like to speak with her sometime. After my good doctor lets me out of the house." Alaric added with a chuckle. "Seems like she's doing some good work, hopefully we can make the Brotherhood into something good for the people living out here, wash away Hardin's little dark age."

"And having a corps of power armored soldiers defending the borders would go a long way towards relieving my security concerns." Boone pointed out dutifully. "Overall we came out of that conflict a lot better than we had any right to. It was a close run thing though, if we hadn't gotten that laser offline…"

Alaric nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, it was touch and go for a while. Oh, that reminds me, the unit that infiltrated that base? I want them decorated, whatever you think is appropriate. We all owe them a lot and having a little pomp and ceremony would lift some spirits around the Mojave."

Boone nodded, rising to go. "I'll work on it, and send along the reports from Vault 34 when they're ready. In the meantime, I don't think you'll be able to avoid Ambassador McKinley forever. My advice, cover that eye." He gestured to the glowing red optic in the otherwise empty eye socket. Alaric chuckled as Boone walked to the door, before the commander stopped just before leaving. "I just realized, I'll have to think up some medals now." He said in a vaguely worried voice.

XXXXX

Chase and his squad were taking the first opportunity to truly relax since the short war with the Brotherhood had ended. After the fight at Helios they had moved into take over Black Mountain and hold it until other forces could be spared, eventually being relieved by tired looking Army troopers and a small horde of skittering robotic scorpions. After that it had been a lot of running around, recon here, escort there, no time to rest. Finally, days after the conflict had 'ended' they had been hauled up onto a stage in Vegas and the Commander had pinned little bits of metal to their chests and told them they had done good while people cheered. Apparently this had been important, so he was told.

He rolled the medal back and forth in his fingers, letting it catch the light. The 'Mojave Star' was supposed to be his reward for doing well, he had been told it was congratulations for his vital actions in securing a swift and decisive end to the Brotherhood conflict, and that it represented courage and ingenuity above and beyond what was expected of any common soldier. How a little metal disk with a silver embossed star on a blue background was meant to represent courage and honor was another thing lost on him, but it at least looked pretty when it caught the light.

Following the dignified and official ceremony commemorating their victory, the squad had proceeded to stage another occupation of a Freeside dive called the Atomic Wrangler, finally releasing the pent up nervous energy from the tense conflict. There had been drinking to various degrees, Royce content to sip Rum and Nuka in a very restrained way while Five Card had gotten 'pissed-to-the-gills' drunk and passing out. Chase had a nasty surprise when he discovered that surface drinks were a lot less watered down than he was used to and slugging vodka like he was used to had gotten him woozy much faster than expected. He also had to wonder if the medal was also some kind of coupon or token because when he waved it at people they seemed compelled to buy him drinks and, in one case, sleep with him.

But now it was the next morning and their heads were slowly clearing, Chase dubiously looking at a jug of what he had been told was hot bean juice that looked far too murky to be healthy while Five Card moaned and groaned and tried to piece together what he had done the last night. They were all sitting around a little table in McCarran, off to themselves and in civilian clothing for the first time in over a week.

"Quite a thrilling turn of events, I have to say." Tony chuckled, reclining in his seat. "First a perilous expedition to a forbidden city, uncovering a dark secret hanging over the local populace, then dashing off to stage a daring raid on a high security bunker to avert the complete destruction of our entire civilization. It's the kind of thing that goes down in legend I tell you."

Royce raised a brow. "Daring raid? I don't quite remember it like that."

Tony waved a dismissive hand. "It was daring for me, all you guys did was whimper and beg for help from the big strong Brotherhood."

Chase put the medal in his pocket. "I wasn't." He insisted.

Tony nodded in a halfhearted way. "Oh, right, right. You just wanted an excuse to run around naked though."

"I was wearing pants." He said crossly. "And it took quite a bit of agility to run about the rocks fast enough to seem like I was everywhere at once, and not take a plasma blast to my bare chest. You had to sneak into an empty room while invisible." He retorted.

"My story is more glamorous." Tony quipped.

Five Card groaned, drinking more coffee. "So, did I… say anything last night?" He asked cautiously.

"You said many things." Chase answered simply.

Sawbones threw him a look. "There was a lot of bragging, and boasting, and flirting."

Five Card paled. "I didn't, uh, do anything… Inappropriate did I?"

"Well…" Royce said carefully. "You kept wandering around telling people how beautiful they were." Five Card groaned. "And how much you liked being there." More groaning. "But you kept forgetting who you were talking to so you just carried the conversation on with someone else without pausing." Five Card put his face in his hands and groaned more, Sawbones patting him on the back in a 'there there' kind of way.

"I didn't get physical with anyone did I?" He asked, sounding terrified of the answer.

"Only the floor." Chase pointed out. "Why are you worried?"

The heavy gunner let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, well I just, you know, wouldn't want to do something I'd regret."

"Five," Royce chuckled. "You're the happiest, sappiest romantic when you're drunk, you couldn't hurt a fly."

"Unless it was on the floor. When he fell on it." Chase noted helpfully. "Plus you get laid all the time, what's the fuss?"

Five Card blinked and drank more coffee to avoid saying anything for a moment. "I just worry sometimes, I'm a big guy, I could hurt somebody without meaning it." He said, his usual bluster back in full force. "So, you've seen what we do up here after a tough mission, what do your people usually do?"

Chase was surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Back where you come from, how do you usually blow off nerves after a fight." He asked.

Chase shrugged. "Not that different I suppose. Have a few drinks, find someone to relax with, eat a good meal. Core concept's the same I suppose. Differences of course, drinks in Bullhead are a lot weaker, just enough alcohol to make it safe to drink. Never liked getting drunk, leaves you vulnerable. And half the time I cooked the meal myself, out of what was left of whoever had been trying to kill me earlier, if that was available." Chase didn't quite get the local humor yet, but he personally found it amusing to watch the surface people squirm in their seats when he talked about his diet. He liked them, but he couldn't resist poking them from time to time. "Really though it's about the same." He shrugged.

Five Card chuckled. "Suppose so, though now that I think about it the strippers at the 'Wrangler might be a little overdressed by your standards."

Chase chuckled. "Oh, I don't know. They might be able to pass it off as local garb if they lost the chains. Just have to find someone who cooks some decent pork ribs and I'll feel right at home."

Five Card let out a loud, barking laugh before groaning and clutching his poor throbbing head again.

XXXXX

Anguis groaned and ran a hand through his hair, before pouring himself another mug of tea. It was an old tribal blend that had become popular in the Legion, it was good with headaches and recently he'd been going through a lot of it. The situation was devolving across the Legion, and Lanius was continuing to prove unable to correct the problems. In many cases he actually was the problem, threatening everyone with death and punishment by simply being in the room should they displease him. Of course punishment of death was hardly uncommon in the Legion, but under Caesar it had been justly deserved, the proper recompense for failure or treachery. Now it was becoming an increasingly common way for Lanius to deal with problems he didn't know how to handle otherwise.

Press gangs had been taking recruits and slaves from the settlements under their control, and Lanius openly spoke of wiping the towns out should they seem dissatisfied with the recruitment policy. He didn't seem to understand that they did not have access to a limitless supply of recruits to call upon, or workers to support those troops, or officers to competently lead them. Some commanders had spoken plainly of the issues they faced and what they needed to correct the decline. Lanius had hung their heads from pikes for daring to imply he did not know what to do. The problem was, he didn't know what to do. The man only knew how to hurt people, that was it, he wasn't a general, he wasn't a leader. He knew how to point at an enemy strongpoint and yell 'charge' with enough gusto that nobody dared to lag behind.

Dissent was spreading, without an enemy to fight outside their borders it seemed like the Legion might tear itself apart from within. He had to do something, he refused to believe that the work of his life would come to nothing because of an idiot sitting on a throne. Just thinking that thought made a little rush of conflicted emotions go through his frail body. Shame at defying his superior, but also a strange excitement at doing something he'd always known was forbidden. Lanius was running the Legion into the ground, that much was certain. The man didn't know it, couldn't see the signs, but Anguis could.

Towns were shoring up their resources, pulling in as if bracing for a storm. Disparate commanders were solidifying their positions, calling for troops and resources beyond what was needed for their actual assignments, hoarding Legionnaires and supplies in preparation for whatever might come. Lanius wasn't nuanced enough to see the writing on the wall, couldn't recognize a betrayal brewing until someone had shouted it in his face. Anguis the Liar could see it all too well, they were headed towards a schism, possibly even civil war.

Torn apart within and surrounded by unknowns. He poured himself more tea. Reports on the southern and eastern borders were still fragmentary, strange occurrences and unsubstantiated contacts. There were rumors from traders of some kind of society to the northeast, possibly that was what they encountered now. The south though was one huge question mark, nothing ever came up from the far south, nothing ever had. With no reason to proceed further the Legion had simply set up border stations to defend its southern edge while proceeding in other, more profitable directions.

The situation in the NCR was difficult to gauge. Some of its people called for war, others for diplomacy, many simply didn't know what to think. For the first time in living memory their march had been stopped cold and now its people wavered with indecision. He cocked his head, realizing there was more than a little similarity to his current plight though. Probably fewer decapitations involved in NCR politics though. As for the Mojave… The rumors coming from the NCR were very worrying indeed. Some kind of internal war, against a force he had heard of but never directly faced, the Brotherhood. Tales of them sounded as legends, but it seemed that whoever ruled Vegas had dealt with them.

That was another unknown, and another legend. The Man in Black, the Mojave Demon, the Desert Hound, the man who had killed Vulpes, Caesar, burned the Fort, almost killed Lanius in personal combat. He was an almost total unknown, the only contact he ever had with the Legion was when he swooped in out of nowhere to wipe out another detachment. As far as he knew the only Legionnaire to ever speak to him was Vulpes, who did not survive their encounter. The Frumentarii had been thrown into chaos with so many of their numbers dead, either when their bases had been stormed or as assassin squads going out into the desert and never coming back, the whole organization was in chaos. However, that did allow Anguis some ability to slip in and co-opt some of their resources for his own needs.

He was just about to retire for the evening when his console blinked, a message coming in. He inspected it, a frown of confusion creasing his face. It had come in over secure channels, the private line that only Anguis now knew of. He opened the message and read it. It was a simple text.

[Frumentarii scout #357 requesting status update. Authentication code 113382.]

He raised a brow, checking his codebook, before frowning again. It was an old code, but it checked out properly. It was possible that someone had gotten their hands on a code, but it was unlikely that they would know both the proper unit number and authentication code for the same agent. Added to that, only a trusted few knew this frequency.

[357, code received and confirmed. This is Viper. State current assignment.] He wrote, sending his personal callsign along to verify his identity. It was a few minutes before the reply came in.

[Deep cover infiltration. Location: Mojave. Remained behind after military withdrawal, have not received any status updates from command, current situation unknown.]

Anguis could barely believe it. A deep cover operative in the Mojave? This could be a treasure trove of information, they had to go on secondhand knowledge so far, rumors carried by traveling tradesmen and radio intercepts.

[Describe the current situation in the Mojave.] He wrote eagerly. [Tell me everything.]

XXXXX

Several days had passed since the battle of Helios now and Alaric was feeling much better. His eye still needed to be replaced but he could still see fine out of the optic, the false eye just being for show, and his wounds had healed completely. Plenty of rest and recuperation had done wonders and he'd eventually chased Gannon out of the Lucky 38 by telling him that the man who conquered the Mojave, slayer of kings and terror of the northern tribe did not need to be fussed over by his doctor, and that he promised to keep eating his chicken soup. Eventually this seemed to be enough for him to be left in peace. He felt totally recovered, however unless he wanted to explain his glowing red eye he had to keep things private for now, only going outside wearing thick aviator shades. All in all things seemed to be recovering well enough from the war.

Public sentiment against the Brotherhood was still hot, though the occupation had been rather short, only about a week really and most of the heavy fighting took place away from the major towns, with only Novac and Goodsprings actually seeing action. For the people of Primm the war was 'that time that power armored jerks squatted in the town for a few days', and people to the north in Vegas and its surroundings might have missed the war altogether if they hadn't turned their radios on.

The first he'd heard from Veronica since the end of the conflict was when she had sent him a progress report on her reforms to the Brotherhood. As expected she had moved their official headquarters to Vault 3. It was a good move in his mind, kept them closer to Vegas itself and a good Vault was about as good a bunker as you could get. She had also been making some internal reforms to the group and was actively rewriting their codex. For one, the order of Paladins was being disbanded, reducing them to only the Knights and Scribes. Having a force whose only function was as a military unit was in her eyes dangerous, especially when they were raised and trained from birth to fill that role. It led to men like Harkin, who rose to power knowing only one violent way to resolve any conflict or problem. Instead the Brotherhood would now consist of the non-combatant scribes, and the Knights who were as much engineers and explorers as warriors.

She had rechristened them as the Mojave Brotherhood, officially disavowing ties to any other factions of the Brotherhood of Steel and declaring independence, though they apparently hadn't been receiving orders or status reports from any other chapters for some time. It seemed as if the Brotherhood of Steel was all but gone from the world, reduced to isolated splinter factions and far flung outposts who had fallen out of contact with one another.

Their new charter also stressed their new approach to the wasteland and its inhabitants. Recruitment was now open to any who wished to join, though that had not been openly declared yet. He somehow doubted that for now there were a lot of people who wanted to join, or who would meet their strict requirements, but it was the only real way to ensure their survival after their repeated casualties. The Brotherhood's new mission statement was also made clear, to actively aid and protect the people of the wasteland however they could, Alaric hoped to make them a more official member of the Confederation, perhaps get some of their technical knowhow working on his various projects. In any case their assistance was sorely needed.

Negotiations with the residents of Bullhead were going well enough, though they were being very cautious. He couldn't blame them, and once he was presentable again he intended to go down there himself and try to negotiate their entrance into the Confederation. They had a lot to gain from him, and he needed their city on his side. Bullhead was strategically vital to his nation's survival and had a good amount of resources to be exploited. A largely intact prewar city that hadn't suffered direct nuclear bombardment would have plenty to offer on its own, but one with a Vault in the middle of it and on a direct trade route between Vegas and Big MT made it vital to hold. He couldn't let someone like the NCR move in and get with them first, though he currently doubted that the NCR even knew people lived in Bullhead. The news that there was an entire city of cannibalistic mutants just to the south had naturally caused a stir, but he'd had Mr. New Vegas assuring the populace that they weren't to be feared any more than any other people. Plus, one of their people was a decorated member of the armed forces who had been vital to securing a swift victory in the Brotherhood war. There was nothing like a good war hero to turn public sentiment.

The military had been chewed up a bit unfortunately. With the losses among the Securitrons he could no longer count on that force being the ultimate deterrent it had been before. He needed to solidify the Bullhead issue and get the Brotherhood on his side quickly. He'd also told McKinley that he was busy with vital issues of state and couldn't meet with him, though that was at least partly true. He just didn't want to have to explain why he was wearing sunglasses indoors when meeting the ambassador.

The one ray of truly good news was Vault 34, which finally seemed ready to begin production. He looked over the options they had sent over, based on what he had asked for. Given that the 5.56 rifles they had been using were largely ineffective against Brotherhood power armor, he had made certain requirements clear for the new standard issue rifle. It was to be a select fire battle rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO ammunition, the powerful round more likely to do damage against heavily armored targets. It was also cross compatible with the civilian .308 Winchester round, both of which were relatively common finds in prewar loot.

Of all the designs suggested to him by the staff, it was eventually decided that they would begin production of the Galil ACE 52. A prewar design from Israel, the ACE was a descendant of the venerable AK 47 design and was noted for its good accuracy as well as extreme reliability in desert conditions. Fed from a 25 round magazine it had a slightly lower capacity than some other options, but the greater power of the 7.62 round increased the chance that what you were shooting at would actually die. Given the fact that they shared the wasteland with power armored warriors, supermutants, deathclaws, radscorpions, ghouls and heavens knew what else, it seemed a safe bet that the increased power would be very sorely needed compared to the 5.56 rifles used by the NCR.

The handgun choice was much more traditional the Colt 6520 design was well known for its reliability, power and capacity, and was relatively easy to manufacture. There was a reason the old 10mm gun was one of the most common handguns in the prewar civilian market, and the postwar wasteland. The 10mm offered more power than 9mm and .45 ACP options and the 6520 design offered good magazine capacity, and the ability to mount various specialty accessories like laser signs and suppressors, it was a solid choice. The Winchester City Killer was an equally simple choice for combat shotgun. Controllable, reliable, simple, and its box magazines were much easier to carry than the Pancor Jackhammer's enormous drums. It was an obvious choice.

While standardization would take time, production was starting immediately, from what he heard there was already something of a trade market starting up, scrap metal being taken to the New Vegas Steel facility to be smelted and then brought to Vault 34 as raw materials. It was a little shaky but it was shaping up nicely. Of course they would run out of scrap eventually but by then he hoped that the mines would be working again. So many considerations, so many options, things seemed stable for now but who knew when the next hammer would fall and send it all into chaos again. For now he just had to try to stay on top of things, and hope the world gave him enough time to see this through.

XXXXX

Anguis had been up all night, trying to get the story straight from the operative on the other end of the line, the tense minutes between messages passed with frantic note taking and review. He'd drunken a lot of tea and felt slightly jittery as a result, but you didn't just tell a covert agent with vital intelligence to wait for a more convenient time. What he found excited and terrified him greatly, but it was far better than living with unknowns and dangerous assumptions.

The Mojave was now a nation, this Confederation, with a diverse and strong standing army. Certainly nothing to equal the numbers of the Legion but some of their weapons were amazing, and fearful. Flying machines, armored giants, mechanical warriors and robotic scorpions, calling lightening from the sky, it seemed something out of a fanciful story. If these reports were accurate then any conflict would likely be a bloody affair. A dug in enemy with a powerful military and an internal source of supply would be a very tough nut to crack. The NCR had been easier to exploit, long vulnerable supply lines, a populace growing increasingly disinterested with the war, soldiers suffering constant morale problems. But a force supplied by short internal supply lines, with soldiers defending their own homes? Not to mention that a good number of its members were mechanical beasts who couldn't feel fear or pain.

To fight such an adversary would be a terrible battle, he even wondered if it could be done. The thought was almost treasonous, perhaps it actually was, Lanius would certainly think so. They had always expanded through conquest, it was their way. They were strong where others were weak, disciplined where others were selfish and chaotic. But mere profligates had fended them off before, did they stand to fare better now? Caesar had spoken of the NCR in reverent tones, the great adversary he would overcome, the hostile nation he would break to prove himself forever. But it had been Caesar that was broken in the crucible of the Mojave, and this new entity forged out of the flames of that conflict.

Could they do it? Could they actually win such a war? They had failed for years trying to beat the NCR, and this Confederation had beaten them at the dawn of its creation. Robots, aircraft, fantastic armor, guns that shot lightening and green fire. Lanius was killing off or alienating their best commanders, the ranks were filling out with green recruits pulled off the fields, they hadn't even recovered from the last offensive. If they failed again, could the Legion as an entity survive? It was a very sober thought.

Eventually the agent had to go, leaving Anguis alone with his reports. He had a rough idea of the troop strength he was looking at, hundreds of robots, hundreds more soldiers, an unknown order of power armored warriors, hulking green mutants who could tear a man in two and war dogs bigger than men. Not to mention this Archimedes doomsday weapon, or the ability to launch more nuclear missiles into the very heart of their territory, or simply bomb them with impunity from that flying machine. And to top it off an elite corps of soldiers and spies, like the Rangers all over again. Anguis looked out the window, realizing that this wouldn't be a war waged on a distant frontline, but right outside his door, as fiery death rained from the heavens with callous disdain. With a trembling hand, he poured himself more tea, readying himself for another day of playing advisor to Lanius, trying to decide what, if anything, he should say.

After going through his usual ritual of kowtowing to his scarred lord, Anguis took up his position at the warlord's right hand. Thankfully there weren't any other officers coming in today, so he was less likely to witness Lanius beating the life from someone for voicing a disquieting opinion. Still, you never could know for sure.

"How goes the training?" Lanius asked out of nowhere, making Anguis jump for his notes.

"Sir, it is proceeding apace, though it will take some time to return to the same strength we showed before the original Mojave campaign." He advised cautiously. "Much manpower and material was lost in both those… setbacks."

Lanius growled. "Had Graham not failed so absolutely when he was trusted to win the day we would not be in this predicament. Had Caesar entrusted the Mojave to me then we would have crushed this uprising before it had ever begun."

You are not half the Legate that Graham was, Anguis thought in a rare moment of genuine anger. Graham understood how to lead, how to motivate, he was a man who tempered brutality with wisdom and intellect. Lanius was a hammer, a dumb blunt instrument fit only for one task! "A grave sorrow indeed my lord." He agreed smoothly, almost aghast at his own internal betrayal. Was this not the man that duty commanded he serve and obey? But did not the Legion's way demand that a man lead because he was suited to the task? Lanius had only inherited command by virtue of not being dead after Caesar had fallen, and terrifying or eliminating everyone who could have disputed his claim.

"And Vulpes, upon reviewing his reports from before his death, I find them very lacking." Lanius continued. "Despite years of his spying and trickery he never discovered anything to indicate there might be an army of robots waiting to spring into action. Had we known of that threat it could have been mitigated. His failure is as much to blame for the situation in the Mojave."

And if you had even a fraction of Vulpes' intellect or cunning, you would know that drafting half the male population was a bad idea without someone having to tell you that food does not magically appear in granaries! Nor would you believe that blindly throwing a third army into the desert which consumed two before it with no plan would be a good idea, or to believe that little things like reconnaissance and intelligence gathering were dishonorable ploys compared to a suicidal blind charge! Anguis found that it was becoming easier by the moment to think such treason, the shackles of duty falling away as more and more he saw the man he served did not deserve it.

"Caesar paid the price for placing his faith in fools like them." Lanius continued, seemingly talking to himself by this point. "Graham was always too soft and foolish, and Vulpes wasted time and resources with his thousand and one ploys, resources best spent on troops and guns not buying the loyalties of profligates for complex schemes that went nowhere. How could he think he could win a war with honeyed words in darkened rooms?"

I wish you hadn't come back alive! Anguis was momentarily stunned by the thought that raced through his head in anger. It was the utmost treason, naked and raw hatred at the blunt, blundering fool who sat on the throne, but there it was. He was horrified when he realized that it wasn't just a thought of angry frustration, but a genuine desire he just hadn't let himself feel. He truly, deeply wished that Lanius had died in the Mojave. That would have left him in charge, someone who understood how to actually lead the Legion, rather than a blood maddened berserker who only knew how to kill. Such a shame that he had come back then, it would have saved him so much pain and done so much good. Too late for that now. Anguis glanced over at Lanius, who was still rambling. But was it, was it really? Say, hypothetically, that Lanius were to vanish somehow, what would the world look like then? It would leave the Legion in his hands, he knew how to get the commanders working together, knew how to motivate the towns to pull their weight, knew what fights should be avoided. He could do a better job of this than Lanius any day, he had done it in the past, no problem.

"Anguis?" Lanius asked eventually, making him jump a little.

"Yes lord?"

"Was there something you wanted to say, you looked thoughtful."

"No, no my lord, nothing to offer at the moment." He looked thoughtfully into the distance. "Just making plans."

===Author's Note===

Dun dun dun! Yes I had to.

Needed to take a little break after the frantic civil war arc, glad to be back.

As always, reviews are very welcome.


	20. Whispers in the Dark

McKinley frowned as he looked over the reports from back west. On the surface, he shouldn't have been unhappy, everything was shaping up nicely. He had plenty of ammunition to use against Alaric in the coming negotiations, when the elusive warlord showed his face again, military sentiment was cooling and calmer heads prevailing back home, trade was even starting to trickle across the border and the first of the tax revenue was making its way to the coffers. Really everything should have been working out properly. All of McKinley's displeasure was directed at one name sitting innocently on one of the forms from the Hub. Dominic Hock.

Hock ran one of the big caravan companies out of The Hub, his people moved goods across the length of the NCR, lived like a merchant prince and had the ear of a few important people in the NCR government. He was also dirty as a New Reno gutter. It had been speculated that he was deep in bed with organized crime, rather more realistically he was the organized crime. People who ran caravans against him tended to disappear, as did anyone with evidence against his actions. He was a crook, but a clever one, never got his own hands bloody, there was always a fall guy, always evidence pointed elsewhere, always an alibi. He wondered if it was bribery or blackmail that got him placed prominently on the traders running caravans to the Mojave. Of course he couldn't prove anything, there was never any solid proof, but he knew. McKinley had the intense displeasure of meeting Hock in person once, and politely but firmly turned down his offers of assistance in the diplomatic issue he'd been working on at the time. Help like that would keep you in debt to the devil for the rest of your life.

Trouble was inevitable with a man like that in charge. Oh there were plenty of other caravans with the proper trade papers to get to the Mojave, but he doubted they'd stay in the business for terribly long. Hock had a way of making competition dry up fast, he'd buy them out or run them off or they'd just vanish into the desert without explanation. He'd lay low for a while, keep his nose clean, then the trouble would begin. And of course it would be McKinley's job to keep the peace along the border when a glorified mobster began causing problems for a warlord used to solving his problems by hitting them in the head with an axe. There was not enough coffee on the west coast to deal with this problem.

Still, perhaps there was something that he could do to try and combat the inevitable problem when it arose. He thumbed through his contacts, bringing up a profile on his terminal. McKinley was not a terribly trusting man, he had very little real faith in the other organizations that the NCR government relied upon. The military, trade commission, intelligence service, they all usually had their own agenda. Even if they were honest they could be compromised or infiltrated. Ultimately you couldn't rely upon them.

It was not standard practice for diplomats and ambassadors to maintain access to a cadre of mercenaries, but nonstandard practices had worked for McKinley so far. Scouts, spies, informants, a little hired muscle, a reliable mercenary could often be trusted more than an officer of his own government, less chance of a conflicting agenda. Eventually he decided on his chosen agent, looking at the profile outlined before him. Bishop, one of his more flexible assets. He'd contracted Bishop to do recon for him in the Mojave before he'd arrived, the intelligence reports that came from that assignment had been invaluable. One agent, unlikely to arouse suspicion, equally adept at investigation as combat, perfect for this situation. He needed eyes on the border, ears in the caravan companies ready to tell him when Hock started making problems for him, and a gun ready to contain the situation when it inevitably hit the fan. He started drafting the contract at once.

XXXXX

Alaric was examining his reflection in the mirror, eventually finding it satisfactory. He'd popped in the new false eye sent up from Big MT with the last supply shipment, and like the one it replaced it was all but impossible to tell it wasn't real. While it may have been amusing to glare down the ambassador with a glowing red cybernetic optic, it was hardly good manners and now that he was presentable again he had another meeting with McKinley to look forward to. Lucky him.

By the time the ambassador arrived he was in his suit and waiting in the same conference room overlooking the Mojave, ready for another one of their private little chats that would shape how two nations would continue to deal with each other in the future. They were of course all smiles as they greeted each other again, sitting opposite each other across a small table.

"I hear that the first trade caravans are making their way up the Long 15." Alaric began, having read the reports from Cass earlier. "Hopefully this will be the start of a strong relationship, commerce is vital to both our nations."

"Yes of course." McKinley agreed. "Here is hoping that everything works out properly. It is on the subject of trade that I wished to speak today. Specifically, Hoover."

Well, it had to come sooner or later. "Is your down payment ready?" He asked casually.

"It is, ready and able to be delivered. Just as soon as we have confirmation that Hoover is, in fact, operational." McKinley was equally polite and casual as the tension in the room grew tangible.

"An interesting choice of words." Alaric began cautiously.

"Given the power fluctuations during the incident with the Brotherhood there are some back west who do not believe that the facility is actually operational." McKinley explained, "Some are worried that you would take the cattle and then force us to wait, perhaps a very long time. This kind of investment is not undertaken lightly, your asking price was not exactly cheap. Not unfair of course but still, I think we deserve to know that what you're offering is in fact yours to give."

Alaric didn't miss a beat. "There are some concerns about Brotherhood sabotage that we need to reconcile before we can return the plant to operation, we had to shut it down due to suspicions of a security breach." He lied without hesitation. "Some are concerned that a Brotherhood agent with a stealthboy might have broken in and planted a bomb or sabotaged some of the machinery, we're sweeping the facility. With something as valuable as Hoover we cannot afford to take any chances you understand."

"Of course, I understand completely." McKinley assured him with every sign of sincerity. "Though you must also understand that until the Dam is ready to produce power we cannot release the down payment, it simply wouldn't be fair to the taxpayers who stand to benefit from this and who, ultimately, footed the bill for that cattle."

Alaric nodded. "Entirely reasonable, I wouldn't want your people to feel they were being exploited or getting the short end of the stick. I do not anticipate the search taking overly long. With any semblance of luck we will be exporting power in no time." He made a mental note to beg Veronica to divert technical staff to getting Hoover online immediately. "As for our more mundane trade, you'll be happy to know that there is a trade company already forming here in Vegas looking to export our goods to the NCR. The caravans should begin moving within the week."

"Oh, good, I'm delighted to hear that." McKinley looked distracted for a moment but he didn't want to pry. "I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities for trade for both of our peoples to benefit."

"I am very sure." Alaric agreed, each man smiling at the other while they tried to decide what, if any, of what the other man said had been true.

XXXXX

Immediately following his meeting with McKinley, Alaric was walking off through the outer Vegas ruins towards Vault 3. Once upon a time he'd crept carefully through these bombed out buildings while ambushing Fiends, now he was free to stroll down the cracked streets with impunity. If anyone doubted the value of forming a proper nation, this was as good an argument against them as any. But once again he found himself running to try and get help from someone in order to keep the whole thing stable.

He was pleased to see sentries standing a watchful guard outside the building that housed the Vault 3 entrance, keeping the various approaches under control. Even well inside the relatively safe borders of the Mojave, and near Vegas itself, they were cautious. Of course after you had fended off an attack from someone inside your own organization you could become understandably paranoid at the prospect of possible attack. He waved to the sentries as they allowed him through the perimeter, walking up to a figure in T-51b standing imposingly by the main door, directly in front of the control panel.

"Hello there." He said warmly. "Might I come in?"

The helmet regarded him dispassionately, but the voice from the tinny helmet speaker was hardly cold. "Pray tell who doth desire entrance to this keep?" The man asked in a strangely elaborate accent.

"Alaric Reynolds. The man from the big shiny tower." He pointed over his shoulder towards the Lucky 38. "Here to see my old friend and new Elder, good sir knight." He added with a little grin.

"But a moment milord, I have sent word to a squire to seek my lady's permission." The warrior replied.

They waited for a few moments outside the impregnable door. "May I ask your name, knight?" Alaric inquired after a bit.

"Knight Kruse, milord." The warrior responded with a little bow of the head. "Formerly Paladin Kruse, before the reordering. Proud to serve the Brotherhood." He added hastily.

Alaric nodded. "What do you think of the new Elder? She doing alright?"

"Lord, my Liege is not for the likes of I to judge, and I would never besmirch her honor. But as you ask, Lady Santangelo has the respect of all within our order, and has done much to mend the bonds of brotherhood within our ranks. She leads with honor and compassion and I count myself fortunate to serve as one of her knights."

Alaric smiled. "That is very heartening to hear, Knight Kruse."

The Knight nodded, before seeming to listen to his helmet radio. "The Lady awaits you in her throne room, milord." He informed, entering the passcode to open the great vault door.

"My thanks, Knight." Alaric said as he entered, leaving Knight Kruse to continue standing imposingly next to the large door.

Alaric found Veronica in her 'throne room', more conventionally known as her 'office'. Seated behind the curved overseer's desk, she wore the official robes of her station. She was looking a lot less haggard than she had been before, like she'd been getting proper sleep and food and no longer had the weight of the world on her shoulders. "You're looking good, very auspicious, 'my lady'."

She quirked a brow as she stood up to greet him. "Why so official all of a sudden Alaric?"

He swept a hand dramatically, indicating the modest office. "Oh, it is simply that being given leave to meet with the lady of this great castle in her opulent throne room leaves me humbled and in awe. Should I compliment the great will of her glorious majesty or will simply kneeling be sufficient?"

Veronica stared before she began to giggle uncontrollably, trying to speak through shaking laughter. "Kruse is guarding the main door isn't he?" She managed to get out through continuing laughter. "There's nobody else down here who talks like that."

He grinned. "Something of a local phenomenon then?" He inquired.

She shook her head, finally overcoming the last of the laughter. "The man's quarters are wallpapered in old movie posters about the Round Table and brave knights, has a collection of the old Tales of Chivalrie comics under his bed. He's been using words like 'forsooth' and 'beseech' for as long as I can remember."

"We all have our coping mechanisms." Alaric said with a shrug and chuckle. "Overly verbose guards aside, there was some things I wanted to talk about."

Veronica sighed, sitting on the edge of her desk. "What's up?"

"Well…" He said, thinking carefully. "I wanted to talk about the Brotherhood, specifically how you're all going to fit into the world now. You want to help and protect people, I want you to help and protect people, we just have to iron out how that's going to work."

She nodded, "I knew this was coming sooner or later, what did you have in mind."

He nodded, it was good that she'd been thinking about it. "Simple, I want the Brotherhood to become part of society. You can keep Vault 3 and some territory around it, sign a treaty with Vegas and you'll be treated just like any other town in the Confederation."

Veronica held up a hand. "Sorry, I've been a little busy with our own problems, can you explain a little how that would work?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Well each township that signs a treaty with Vegas becomes part of the Mojave Confederation. Each town is free to write and enforce its own laws within its borders so long as they don't conflict with the Confederation Constitution. At least, when I get around to writing one. And they will also be subject to the overall laws of the entire Confederation, you know, when I get to writing a legal code." He shifted uncomfortably, not looking forward to that problem. "But you'd be largely autonomous, free to keep whatever form of internal governance you deem fit and draft whatever laws inside your borders you like. Your people would be full citizens of the Mojave Confederation and subject to its laws. Though you would also have the protection afforded to any other township in the Confederation. Does that sound reasonable?"

She considered it. "And we would still be free to operate as our own organization? We wouldn't be placed in a subservient position or forced to take orders from anyone, free to openly recruit and operate?"

"Within reason, of course." He agreed. "I mean you can't just march around inside the Confederation and grab technology, but there are plenty of places outside the borders you could investigate. Recruitment is your own concern and so long as its voluntary I see no reason to infringe upon it. Though I would greatly appreciate it if you would take active steps towards defending the Mojave from external threats, I can't force your people to do it. If I tried to I'd really just be conscripting them into the Army, and I don't think that would work well."

Veronica considered, before she nodded. "I think that's about as good an offer as I could hope for, of course I'll have to inspect this treaty before I make any real agreement."

Alaric smiled, reaching into his vest pocket and pulling out an official looking piece of paper, laying it on the desk beside her. She looked at it before giving him a little glare.

"You never doubted for a second I'd agree, did you?" She asked accusingly.

Alaric held up his hands. "I simply have the utmost faith and respect for Her Majesty's good judgement." He said innocently.

XXXXX

After a day or two of consideration, the treaty was signed and Vault 3 was officially granted township status amongst the Mojave Confederation, and its residents declared citizens. The Brotherhood of Steel, Mojave Chapter was officially recognized as an independent, private organization and was free to operate as long as they did not violate the laws of the Confederation. Of course that meant that at some point the Confederation would need laws, or else the whole situation would seem rather silly. Alaric wanted to hold off on writing the legal code until he had conducted negotiations to get Bullhead into the Confederation, and had a little plan for how he was going to get that to work out. There were a few prerequisites for it though, one of which was getting Hoover online sooner rather than later.

To that end, he had asked for and received a large team of Brotherhood scribes and knights to get Hoover operational again. Thankfully many of the processes seemed to be automated, but without supervision and maintenance the facility couldn't operate properly, or safely. The team was reviewing the proper procedures now and hopefully the Dam would begin producing power again within the week. Alaric was confident in that, if the NCR could figure out how to get it working, the Brotherhood of Steel certainly could.

Once that was done he could get Bullhead on his side, though that would be a bit of a sticky issue for a lot of people. They were a large population of hardy survivors positioned in a strategically vital location, it was important to the nation to get them on his side. However they were also a population of cannibalistic mutants with a way of life that was quite alien to many in the Mojave, and held values and beliefs that ranged from disquieting to offensive. He needed to help turn public opinion around, so he'd decided to make a bit of a media campaign about the contributions of one native of Bullhead who had been vital to the victory at Helios. Nothing tactless or gaudy, but simply letting people know that they were already here, and already proving to be a boon. Public sentiment was expected to swing his way, especially after he made clear the vital strategic and economic importance of a secure trade lane with Big MT.

Big MT itself was another matter. What with it being the source of roboscorpions, LAER guns and soon who knew what else, there was simply no way he could keep it secret anymore. Besides, Big MT needed to be staffed anyway. The Think Tank were very useful in their own right, but six researchers alone in the whole of that facility was a waste of its potential. There were other scientists and gifted minds in the Mojave who could make a lot of positive contributions in an environment like that, and it was a waste to let Big MT's labs sit empty and idle. That and an influx of workers would be needed to maintain the facility, man production lines, farm for food and so forth. He'd already put out feelers to a few acquaintances who might be interested in getting the ball rolling. If they could just start replicating the technology there, mass producing and adapting the technological wonders that facility held, it would go a long way to improving living conditions and national strength.

The Army was doing well, battered, bloody and proud after their victory over Hardin, they were starting to look like an actual military force now. The first production run of ACE rifles was getting into the hands of the soldiers, it seemed they were well liked by the men for their power, especially among those who had been left plinking 5.56 rounds off the chestplate of a Paladin during the civil war. Of course it would take some time to fully outfit the military with new equipment, but they were quickly transforming from a legion of green recruits into a battle hardened fighting force. All in all things were going rather well for the moment, though it still wore on his nerves. There was simply nothing to do now, he'd played his hand, set every available asset to work on the various tasks that needed to be done. Now he had to sit and wait to see how it all played out.

XXXXX

Following the rather heady revelation of what he had to do, Anguis had resolved to maintain a more strict mental discipline in the future. Yes, it had been satisfying to internally rant at Lanius' failings and contemplate how much better he could make things once he was in charge again, however this ultimately gained him nothing. Less than nothing actually, as any crack in the façade might make Lanius go over the edge and kill him, political suicide be damned. No, he would have to be cunning, and sly, and use every carefully hoarded asset at his disposal. This was a task for which he was fully qualified.

Actually killing Lanius would prove difficult, the man was a monster with a well-deserved reputation for not dying when logic and the universe said he should have. Not even this new warlord in the Mojave had slain him in single combat, and if half of what he had been hearing about him was true, then it was only further proof of how stubbornly Lanius clung to life. The Mojave, there was an interesting situation. He wondered perhaps if he could use this enemy for his own purposes, manipulate the situation so that it ultimately benefited him, and through him the Legion as a whole. An external enemy was a good rallying cry for the rank and file to get behind, a real foe to direct their anger towards rather than at each other. But while he was no military strategist, Anguis knew that their new neighbor to the west was a powerful opponent. Victory over such a foe would likely be pyrrhic considering the already weakened nature of the Legion, and the terrifying technologies both tactical and strategic that the Mojave and its mythic master commanded.

That was another matter, where had they gotten such marvelous weapons? He had access to the old scouting reports, both from Legion troops and spies. He knew well enough that Vegas was largely intact and possessed of advanced technology, the Securitron robots were a well-known factor. But where had these robotic scorpions come from? And what about the guns that shot bolts of electricity? The description of them and their terrible affects was too specific to have mistaken some other energy weapon for them, this was something new. These technologies were not present in the Mojave before now, and not enough time had passed since the regime change for them to have been developed and produced in such numbers. They had to have gotten them from somewhere, some outside supply, but his agent had very adamantly informed him that he did not know where this mystery stockpile was.

In fact, the agent seemed very tight lipped about a lot of things. He couldn't say for certain, but he was starting to get the distinct feeling that his spy was deliberately keeping things from him. His knowledge of certain things was too clear and precise for him to know nothing about others. He knew almost exactly how many troops the Mojave had, but no knowledge of where any of them were. He knew that they had a factory producing weapons capable of punching through Legionnaire armor, but not where it was located or how it might be disabled. He spoke in intricate and terrifying detail of an organization of elite warriors, these Commandoes, whose prowess was equal to the feared Rangers, but had no information to offer about their specific capabilities or deployments. Of course since his only contact with this agent was over text on a screen he could hardly force the truth from him, and if he demanded a straight answer he risked driving away his only source if intelligence. So far what the spy had been telling him conformed with rumors and hearsay from other agents in the NCR, so what he was being told was accurate at least.

Perhaps he was simply being paranoid, seeing daggers flashing in every shadow, a side effect of plotting to murder and usurp his commanding officer. It was entirely possible that the agent was simply in a position to overhear important information in the region, and was not directly exposed to it. Perhaps someone who spoke to soldiers, or someone in the defense industry, but was not directly exposed to it, or someone who worked alongside the Mojave's military but was not trusted enough to be brought into the circles of power and hidden knowledge. The information was useful in forming overall strategic plans, but nothing he could use to actually plan an attack. Which overall did not trouble him too deeply, as he wasn't planning to attack the Mojave. But perhaps he could use this knowledge to make Lanius disappear, somehow.

All the same, he had investigated this agent's past based on his intelligence records. Agent #357, Frumentarii, an asset thought lost. 357 had been one of the original infiltrators into the Mojave area when the invasion was first planned, when the NCR was still a name whispered on the west wind and had yet to be directly encountered. He had been thought dead following the defeat at Hoover Dam, as all contact had been lost. Now he was back, claiming that he had been in deep cover the whole time. Whoever was on the other end of that terminal screen knew private details about the agent's service record, which seemed to indicate he was the genuine article. Or the real agent had broken under interrogation and given an impostor enough details to impersonate him over this minimalistic communication. No picture or voice to back up the text, he had no real way to know who he was speaking to. Loyal Legion operative or Mojave saboteur? An NCR agent attempting to manipulate the situation, or an as of yet encountered fourth party?

Anguis found himself at the center of a web of intrigue, lies, unbearable reality and terrifying possibility. Nightmare inducing intelligence reports from a possibly compromised agent, once trustworthy commanders sizing up their own domains, unthinkingly loyal soldiers mere pawns in the games of those above them, shadowed figures manipulating the whole situation for their own ends, and centered around the most unlikely of all men plotting the most unthinkable of all murders. Anguis smiled and cracked his fingers, he could not have felt more at home, or more alive.

XXXXX

As far as Chase was concerned, peace was good. Peace meant nobody shooting at him, a soft bed in McCarran rather than a wasteland bedroll and hot food three times a day instead of the rations they were forced to take into the field. He wondered if whoever issued them was subtly trying to encourage survival skills like hunting and foraging, if only to avoid eating the strange canned substance that purported to be meat but could never be positively identified as such, or what it had come from in the first place.

Currently it was lunch time, two weeks into the peace following the battle at Helios One. M-SOC had it made as far as Chase was concerned. You didn't see Commandoes out patrolling roads or enforcing blockades like the rank and file. They were precision honed instruments for the most dire of circumstances, and not to be used so lightly! In reality it meant they got better gear, better pay, and more downtime between missions as the regular troopers dealt with the lesser issues of security and war. Yes their missions were more dangerous, but in the end a few days of high tension combat probably carried a lot less risk than the constant dice rolling of frontline combat, and their armor was better anyhow. Not that Chase looked down on any of the regular troopers, he was just very comfortable and satisfied with his position.

The team was seated around a table in their area of McCarran, plates, drinks and cards laid out on the table as they played cards for such small stakes it was almost a formality. Chase wasn't one for gambling as he hated unnecessary risk to health and property, but it was enjoyable and only a few caps were ever on the line. Besides, his general stoic expression gave him a decent advantage.

"I've heard that the Mojave is trying to get Bullhead to join up, sending ambassadors and everything." Royce commented, holding his cards in one hand and a sandwich in the other. "Certainly be quite a big change down there. Though from what I hear they're having trouble deciding who is supposed to speak for them."

Chase nodded, face impassive as usual. "That sounds about right. We're a tight knit group but we've never had any kind of government beyond individual communities. We tend to discuss important issues publicly and general consensus rules, for the most part. But between the communities there's never been much official cooperation. Not really much point to it, never enough resources to actually do anything."

Royce nodded, everyone laying their cards on the table. "Yeah, I imagine it'll take a while for them to figure out who's qualified to negotiate on their behalf. Do you think there will be much trouble getting them to join? I mean, from what we saw when we were there, they're a very different culture. Besides, not a lot of people here would be too thrilled with the idea of a bunch of cannibals running around."

Chase gave him a look that managed to be withering without really changing his expression.

"I mean people who don't know you!" Royce said defensively. "We were there, we saw it, Stalkers are just people with a few quirks. But people with no direct exposure wouldn't know that, they just know there is a city full of mutants who eat people."

"Maybe you introverts haven't noticed." Sawbones said in a mildly judging tone. "But there's been a bit of a media campaign about a certain Stalker Commando. Nothing over the top, but the radio has been making repeated, concerted mention of one 'native of Bullhead's courage, ingenuity and dedication to duty' that was vital in securing swift victory over the renegade Brotherhood."

Royce let out a long sigh. "So that's why he's been getting so much attention." He said with exasperation.

Chase shrugged. "I thought it was just my exotic good looks." He deadpanned as he looked over his cards.

They played their hands, Five Card shuffling the deck and dealing.

"But I suppose that helps." Chase admitted after a moment. "We are just people in the end. We're not better or worse, got a few differences. Life's been hard for my people, hopefully they join up, there are a lot of nice benefits to be had up here."

"Sunlight, farming, fresh air, plentiful food," Royce counted, extending his fingers as he went. "Abundant living space, cultural heritage, if I had to live in a subway tunnel or dried out sewer my whole life with barely any music or books I'd get very crabby."

"Don't forget breeding stock." Chase pointed out, making Royce do a small double take.

"Excuse me?" he asked, "What do you mean by… that sounds really dirty you know."

Chase shrugged. "You were there, we went over the medical reports in the Vault. There were only about one hundred stalkers when we broke out, our numbers are roughly twenty times that much now. The starting gene pool was rather small and there hasn't been a drop of new blood coming into Bullhead since before the war. You four were the first outsiders to ever enter the Metro and as far as I know," he shot Five Card a meaningful look, "Nobody bred with any of the Stalkers there. Our gene pool is very, very stagnant, that's just not sustainable."

Royce thought about it, drumming his fingers on the table. "One hundred Stalkers to start out, nearly two centuries of growth since then… Uh, I don't mean to offend but I'm thinking of a lot of redneck stereotypes right now." Chase gave him an uncomprehending stare. "Um, I mean… families… not enough…" He made a strange series of movements with his free hand as if trying to grasp something that wasn't there.

"He means inbreeding." Sawbones offered, earning a thankful nod from Royce.

"Yeah, that, how would you avoid that?"

Chase shrugged. "We don't." He admitted, making everyone stare. "I mean, we know it's not healthy, but there's just no other choice. Goes back to when we were made, the small sample size constantly being interbred, couples being switched up and rotated. There's only one family tree in Bullhead, infinitely twisted and weaving back in on itself. Genetically, we're one gigantic family, some are a lot more closely related than others."

Sawbones put down his cards, seemingly forgetting about the game. "That would be unsustainable, negative genetic traits would emerge within a few generations, deformities would become more and more common with each generation."

Chase nodded, sighing. "Yeah, we know that. Hence why we're, in general, very promiscuous by your standard, it's not just because it's fun. If one woman has three children by three different men, those children will be a lot more genetically diverse than if she had them by one man. Then those kids disperse and move off to different settlements to try and keep mixing things up. That's part of the reason our different settlements don't fight each other, in order to survive we have to keep the blood flowing between all of them, everyone has family everywhere else, close family I mean, not just genetic. Still, like I said, inbreeding is inevitable and unavoidable, we're all related to varying degrees, and everyone has at least a few common ancestors depending on how far back you go. Everything we do is just risk mitigation, try to keep things stable for as long as we can."

Sawbones shook his head again. "Still, that's a holding pattern. It's a sound strategy when dealing with a small population but you're only delaying the inevitable. You'd still die out."

"Exactly." Chase admitted. "Hence why I say, breeding stock. We know humans and stalkers can conceive stalker children, they were using that back in the Vault to try to add diversity to the population. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mojave soon becomes overrun by single Stalkers looking to hook up. Just one generation of new blood would ensure our species can survive. Everyone down there knows that, and once it sinks in what being part of the wider world really means, they'll jump at the chance to join the Confederation. We need you to survive, in more ways than one."

"You're very knowledgeable about the principles behind genetic diversity." Sawbones noted with pleasant surprise.

The mutant shrugged. "It's common enough knowledge among Stalkers. Most have genealogies that they exchange to judge the potential risks. Even if two people don't like each other they might conceive a child if they agree it's worth it for the sake of good breeding. I… don't know my own of course, no idea who my family is." He hung his head slightly, it had always been something he considered shameful, to not know where he stood in the genetic history of his people.

"Well at least you have safe options now." Royce said, seemingly always intent on finding something to be cheered up about. "And more food variety, all you seemed to eat down there was mushrooms, fish and… each other. I'm glad you don't have to do that anymore."

Chase crossed his arms, pouting slightly. "But I like eating people." He complained, making the sniper go slightly pale. "Oh don't look at me like that, so long pork's my favorite food, you like Nuka Cola right?" He nodded. "You wouldn't shoot someone to get a case, would you?" He shook his head. "There, nothing to worry about." He looked back to his cards, then back up, everyone was still staring at him. He sighed, raising his right hand. "I solemnly swear I will only eat bad people. Besides, regular pork tastes weird, it's like the taste equivalent of the uncanny valley, it's just not right."

Royce shook his head. "Sometimes I really don't know about you man. Uh, call." He tossed a few caps into the pot.

"Raise." Chase said, pushing a large pile in and keeping a perfectly straight face. The others considered, looking up at each other. Chase took a bite out of his pork sandwich before shaking his head. "It's just not the same." He sighed. They folded one by one. "Well this has been a fascinating discussion." He said, looking at his hand. "But you were all so busy thinking about my diet you forgot to think about my cards." He laid the hand down revealing a pair of threes to much groaning. "Thank you, thank you." He said with a chuckle, raking in his winnings.

The group turned though as they heard approaching footsteps, a low ranking trooper walking up. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's been a development. Report to the briefing room at once, you're being deployed."


	21. Echoes in the Desert

The team seated themselves in the briefing room, large strategic map of the Mojave region projected on the wall, with Commander Boone standing behind a podium. The large room felt even bigger than usual, as their five-man team was the only presence apart from their commanding officer. Boone looked up from the podium to address them.

"You are being sent to the southeastern border region, beyond the border outpost." He indicated the location of what the NCR had called the Mojave Outpost, their gateway to the region. With the rise of the Mojave Confederation, the outpost still served as a gateway, albeit now reversed, the way out to the world from the Mojave rather than in. "With the warming relations between the Mojave and NCR, trade caravans have begun running between the two nations. However we've received reports from the caravans that they are coming under raider attack along the Long 15, your unit is being deployed to deal with the situation as best you can. Scout the highway, do what you can to investigate the attacks and see if this is just abnormal raider activity, or if this is more organized than just a bunch of gangs all deciding to attack at the same time."

Tony raised a hand. "Is there any other intelligence regarding the attacks? It's not much to go on."

Boone shook his head. "Unfortunately not. There are some indications that this could be more organized activity than normal, strategic trends that indicate the possibility of higher planning. However it is equally likely that these are simply opportunistic raids targeting the new traffic through the area, which had died off after the war."

This time Five Card raised a hand. "Not to sound dismissive of people getting hurt out there, but isn't this an internal security problem for the caravans to worry about? Besides aren't Securitrons better suited to securing the road, they move faster, don't get tired, and so on."

"You're not there to provide security, you're there to investigate." Boone pointed out. "Robots are useful but not for much more than shooting things or seeing he obvious. I need you to investigate the root cause of these attacks, not just put down any raider that you see from the road. But yes we are planning a peacekeeping deployment to the area. As for the why, establishing good trade with the NCR is vital to the Mojave's economy. Without tourism and the trade of goods across the border, the economic situation will deteriorate, and good relations may break down. Keeping that road clear is critical to national defense and the livelihood of the people. The order for this mission comes from the very top, I'm trusting you with it because of your previous successes. Do not disappoint me."

Chase nodded. "We'll see what there is to see. Will there be any other support on this mission? And what is the NCR doing, if anything?"

"Some other investigators are being sent, but right now M-SOC is strung out in too many operations to offer further support. You don't need to crush this entire movement singlehanded, just find us enough information to find a weak spot to exploit. If there is nothing else, dismissed."

The team stood and saluted, filing out of the briefing room and down to the armory to grab their gear and prepare for the mission ahead. Despite the increasing uniformity of equipment with the guns pouring from Vault 34 in respectable quantities, M-SOC retained its diversity of equipment and firearms. Their gear was meant to be difficult to identify, armor hidden or obscured under clothing, different firearms, they weren't intended to be easily recognizable. And in spite of any reasonable argument, Chase would never willingly part with his Kalashnikov after everything it had been through with him. The weapon was an extension of his own body and he felt far more comfortable with it than any other weapon. Mechanics and ballistics couldn't replace a familiarity like that.

Soon enough they were out on the road, marching south. Five Card grumbling as he lugged his light machinegun. "Why do we have to walk? You'd think the military could spring for a truck to carry us to the outpost at least."

Tony chuckled. "Not enough stamina big man? Besides, way I hear it the logistics are thin enough with importing gear from Big MT and I've heard rumor that command is planning on some big expedition soon. I'm sure they have other things to worry about rather than carting your big ass across the Mojave so you don't have to walk."

"I'm only concerned with the speed of our arrival!" Five Card protested. "I can understand your concerns though, this weapon is far too large and impressive for someone like you, I doubt you could handle it."

Chase smirked, he had to admit though that the gunner was the largest out of them all, one huge slab of muscle and carried the large firearm like it weighed a fraction of its true weight. "I admit, it's size is impressive." Chase added with his usual flatly sincere voice. "But raw power isn't worth much if you end up passing out and collapsing before you're able to do get the job done."

"I can carry this weapon for… oh very funny." Five Card said with a glower. "Aren't you just so clever, little man."

Chase smirked again before his face fell back to its usual unemotional mask. "I know you well enough Five, you've got this."

"As for the mission at hand." The doctor began. "Any thoughts on what we might see out there? No raiders for an extended period and then suddenly caravans are getting hit all over the place? It could be random but at the same time…"

"Hiring raiders as thugs would hardly be an original tactic." Tony pointed out. "Legion loved to operate like that, hire some idiots with guns to throw themselves at a problem, soften things up. NCR could also be behind it, either group could stand to gain from disrupting trade, in different ways. Or it could be a new minor player, somebody bringing the raider gangs together to coordinate bigger scores, no way to tell until we get out there and get some actual info. Maybe interrogate someone or find evidence on a body. No way to tell what's going on until we get into the middle of it." Tony sighed, looking off into the distance, like he was trying to see across the horizon.

Chase looked up, seeing the Mojave Outpost looming ahead of them. "First off we talk to the caravaners at the outpost." He instructed, the team climbing the hill towards the big statues. "After that we head out, see if we can't capture one of these raiders. If not we search the corpses to try to find something. Failing that, we find more raiders. Sound like a plan?"

XXXXX

Alaric was smiling. This was, thankfully, not one of the smiles that preceded the fall of empires, rather this was just the honest, happy smile of someone who had finally seen something go right. Much celebration had sounded across the Mojave when it was announced that Hoover dam was fully operational once again, lights across the Confederation were burning bright and one of the cornerstones of the national economy had been restored. He had been smiling as he talked with McKinley again, who had assured him that the brahmin drive was on the way to the border right now, under military escort. Alaric had then shown how gracious he was, or at least wanted to be seen as, by immediately offering very friendly prices for Hoover's power. Certainly the Mojave stood to profit much, but he didn't resort to gouging the NCR like he could have.

That done, and with profit already rolling in, he had begun to turn his attention to other matters in the region. Hoover was indeed operational, however it could be further improved. One problem with it was that they were currently dependent on Knights and Scribes of the Brotherhood keeping it running. Training a team of civilians to operate the facility would take time, time that the Brotherhood could be using to do something else, so he had decided to kill two birds with one stone, as it were.

The Divide. Thinking of that place conjured up difficult memories for Alaric. It had been a harrowing experience, undertaken just before the battle at Hoover Dam. He had walked into that hellish place seeking answers, and when he walked out again he wasn't sure he'd found any, or to what questions. He had not found the peace of mind he had hoped for, but he did gain certainty, clarity of purpose, and put some old ghosts to rest.

He'd done a lot of damage as he walked through that blighted hellscape, though it was still a very dangerous place to venture. But the technology there was more than worth the risk. Not only could a strong presence in The Divide give him another strongpoint to defend against a possible NCR incursion, but the Eyebot production facilities there would be invaluable. The applications for the utilitarian robots were incredible and varied, medicine, repair, direct combat, long range scouting. The utility variants could massively reduce the manpower needed to keep Hoover operating, and an army of hovering robots patrolling the borders could secure the long stretches of desert better than any organic, and faster than any other robots they had.

Of course they would need a powerful strike force to even establish a foothold in that hellish domain. There were still some Marked Men in the area he presumed, and the Tunnelers and Deathclaws would inflict horrors on regular soldiers. Thankfully he had the ear of the lady in command of just one such strike force. He gave her a call.

"So, you're finally going through with it?" Veronica asked after he outlined his basic plan.

"We've talked about it since before the schism, now we're in a position to make it happen. The Divide, we secure that, and we're sitting pretty for a nice long time."

She sighed. "It won't be easy, if what you said is any indication. Still, the ability to build those robots en masse would be amazing, not to mention just the sheer amount of useful supplies laying around in armories and bunkers could do wonders for quickly arming both our groups. I assume that we're getting a nice cut of the spoils?"

Alaric chuckled. "Are you a lady knight or a pirate queen?" He asked playfully. "Yes, you'll get plenty of shiny toys for your people to enjoy. Not to mention having even a few nukes would be all the deterrent we need to keep anybody with two brain cells to rub together at arm's reach."

"True." She admitted. "Though don't be too eager to use them. It's not like we could replace the damn things, and I don't want to have any part in burning the world again. I'll start getting a strike group together."

"Good, good. Your people will have to be the tip of the spear. The ground there is too broken up for Securitrons, so I'll be sending regular Army and the scorpions, as many as can be spared from defensive positions. You need to get the door open, we'll move in and secure the flanks. I'll be heading out myself, I'm the only person who's walked that road and lived, that we know of at least, but I won't presume to command your troops. You'll have to put one of your own in charge, somebody who's not afraid of charging headlong into hell on earth."

"You know, I think I know just the man." Veronica said thoughtfully.

XXXXX

The productive, respectful silence of Vault 3 was broken as a door hissed open, a large man marching purposefully out of a door, paper documentation of his orders clutched in one hand. "SQUIRE!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs, a teenaged member of the Brotherhood running to catch up with him. "SQUIRE! Oh, there you are. Squire, fetch me my armor and weapons!" the big man bellowed in a voice that belied a fierce and terrible joy.

"Yes, at once Knight Kruse!" The lad panted, half out of breath. "What is going on?"

Kruse threw his head back and laughed, waving the crumpled deployment papers in his hand like the hilt of a sword. "The time has come!" He declared triumphantly. "I sally forth at last at the head of a column of noble knights! Swords flashing, breastplates gleaming!"

"Sir?" the squire asked nervously.

"We are going on an adventure!" Kruse said dramatically, marching off towards the armory, his squire jogging to keep up with his energetic stride, everyone else in the hall watching in silent, vaguely terrified awe.

XXXXX

As the Mojave outpost shrank into the distance behind them, Chase thought over what little they had learned from the caravan drivers there. They hadn't known much about the raiding, whoever was behind it didn't seem to leave survivors, caravans just vanished into the desert and weren't seen again. Some made it through without a hint of trouble, others were simply gone and only sometimes found as a picked over wreck, and the caravaners who discovered those sites didn't stick around to search for any useful clues. Still, at least they had a basic idea of what they were dealing with, conventional small arms rather than heavy weapons or energy based attacks, which was comforting at least. It increased the likelihood that whoever was behind this was just another band of raiders or cutthroats rather than someone with access to more advanced weapons. Though a lot of raider gangs weren't organized enough to hit so many caravans with such overwhelming force that there were never survivors. That would require numbers, and either scouts along the caravan routes or knowledge of where the caravans were going to be.

"Don't like it." Tony said, breaking the silence of the windswept road.

Chase looked over to him. "Hmm?"

"Too many unknowns." The man said, shaking his head. "And a whole lotta sand to try to find answers in. Are we supposed to just keep combing the desert until we happen across some skeevy looking bastards with goat skulls on their hats or something?"

Chase smirked. "We may not know where these bandits are, but we know what they're looking for." He pointed out, pulling up a map on his Pipboy. "Caravans to sack. So we figure where a likely target is, and then intervene. We've got the caravan routes, so we look for a place where someone might stage an ambush on one of them."

"And then we stage one of our own." Tony finished. "Smart. When were you planning on telling us this plan?"

Chase shrugged. "When it became relevant for you to know it." He admitted simply, he hadn't really thought about explaining the plan beyond what immediately needed doing. "Sorry, did I do wrong again?"

Tony shrugged. "I just don't like unknowns. Unknown variables get people killed, if you don't have proper recon, or know what you're going into, or your superiors don't have their heads on straight then people get killed."

Royce piped up. "More personal experience?"

Tony grunted. "My old leaders were a bunch of jerks who deserved what they got, they ran rough over their followers and didn't care if they got hurt or died."

Chase shot him a reproaching look. "I would care if you got hurt." He said quietly.

The hacker hung his head a bit. "Sorry, I didn't meant to imply that you wouldn't. I guess it's just being out here, walking the long roads like, looking for a soft target to shank, kinda takes me back to the bad old days."

The mutant nodded. "I'll try to be more forthcoming with my thoughts from now on, it was wrong of me to keep quiet about my plan." He looked out over the endless cracked earth and sand, broken by the odd bit of scrub. "This is all very alien for me, I'm not used to such wide open spaces. I'm used to tight places, broken glass underfoot, rubble above my head waiting to fall. But being on the hunt feels the same whether I'm here or there. It takes me back too." He pulled his collar up, wrapping a long cloth around his nose and mouth and tucking it into his dust coat. "Just remember, these bandits may think they're hunters out here, picking off stragglers in the desert, but we're the real predators here."

As he spoke, Chase looked up to the foothills in the distance, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck, making him shift uncomfortably.

XXXXX

They walked on along the desert road, the Long 15 heading southeast, Chase looking on his Pipboy to check their location as they went. They had decided on a location, a low-lying series of hills and rocky cliffs which lay to the north of the roadway. It offered concealment and a height advantage, anyone trying to keep a lookout for caravans along the trade route would likely want to have control of it as it offered the best position from which to stage their raids, or at the very least scout them. Knowing that they could well be advancing into hostile territory, they moved cautiously in the evening sunlight, scanning the distant rocky crags with scopes and binoculars.

"Still nothing." Royce said after they had stopped for a fourth time to let him scan the horizon. "If there is anyone up there, they're laying low."

Chase grimaced. "So many possible routes, makes me miss the tunnels to be honest. The caravans meander all over the place trying to keep raiders from knowing where they're going. Unfortunately that means there are about a thousand places in this desert that these bandits could be hiding in wait. Still, have to start somewhere."

Royce nodded, scanning with his scope again, sweeping slowly and steadily over the terrain. "Yeah, big wide open patch of nothing. Talk about a needle in a… got something."

Chase instantly snapped around and brought his binoculars up, scanning.

"About a kilometer west-northwest, along that smaller side road, by the dead tree. You see it?"

Chase shifted his view carefully. "Yes, I think, reflection off of something. Let's check it out, advance quick and low."

They moved with the speed and precision drilled into them in the ruins surrounding New Vegas, advancing two-by-two with Royce sweeping the horizon with his scope for signs of movement, each two man team stopping to provide overwatch as the next moved up, then advancing as the new forward group covered them. It was tense and not terribly fast, cover to cover across hundreds of meters of exposed terrain, but no strobes of gunfire lit the evening as they advanced, until eventually they reached the source of the flashing light they had seen before. They clustered around, looking at the dead man on the ground, the lens of a scuffed wristwatch catching the light as it filtered between breaks in the clouds, making it reflect and flash across the sand.

"Five dead raiders by the look of it." Five Card pointed out. They seemed to fit the general parameters, heavily worn leather clothing with makeshift bits of armor, charms and fetishes of bone and feather and other odd trinkets hanging from their persons.

Sawbones looked the bodies over with a clinical eye. "Gunshot wounds, all of them. These three in the chest." He nodded to three that lay in a close group. "Those in the back." He gestured to two further away. "Casualties from attacking a caravan?"

Chase shook his head, reaching down to pick up a fallen pistol. "No, the winners would have looted the bodies. And there aren't any bodies of caravan drivers or guards, no dead brahmin, the casualties were one sided. It's possible they were just unlucky but five or more raiders could take down at least one caravan guard."

Five Card shrugged. "Could have been picked clean then, or somebody came back for them, how long they been dead anyway?"

Sawbones set his backpack down, rummaging through his supplies. "Just a moment, I'll have to run a few tests."

Chase sighed, squatting down on his haunches next to one of the bodies, picking up the limp arm. Before anyone could object he sunk his teeth into the warm flesh, tearing off a chunk as he heard various cries of alarm and disgust. He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments before swallowing. "Three days, give or take a couple hours." He stated, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

Royce's face was screwed into a squeamish knot. "Was that… entirely necessary?"

Chase shrugged. "Got the answer faster, and I wanted a snack, win-win."

Sawbones was putting his unused tools back into his bag. "Well, three days then. Does seem a long time to be left here, and you're right about the guns being abandoned to rust. Doesn't sound like raiders, or caravaners."

Tony was rifling through the dead men's pockets. "No Legion coin." He noted. "Caps and NCR Dollars, but that doesn't prove anything, if Legion hired them they'd be stupid to pay them their own coins, plenty of caps to go around. Plenty of NCR currency but that's just as likely taken from dead victims, we're on their border." He started looking over the weapons. "Guns, standard fare, prewar civilian firearms, and postwar junk." He picked up a rifle that looked to be made of pipe fittings and bicycle parts. "Functional but low end, scrap built or pulled out of old ruins."

"And what does that tell you?" Chase asked curiously.

"That these guys were likely independent. If the Legion or the NCR hired them as part of some master plan you'd think they'd toss in a few guns to help them get the job done. Instead they've got zip guns, pipe rifles, two century old police sidearms and beat up hunting rifles. Still kill you just fine but they certainly weren't supplied by anybody to do this job."

Five Card grunted. "Legion would probably have given them some better guns. Old lever actions or SMGs at least, these pieces of crap look like they're about to fall apart."

Chase gave him a look. "That's an astute observation." He noted.

The big man shrugged. "I know my guns, Tony's right these are all old civilian pistols and hunting rifles, or bottom of the barrel garage guns, if the Legion hired these guys they obviously didn't care about whether they'd actually succeed. I can see NCR hiring people like that but if the Legion hired these guys, they've really lowered their standards for hired mooks.

"So." Chase said, looking around. "Either opportunistic bandits or hired by a third party altogether." He tapped his fingers on the butt of his rifle. "Then who killed them if it wasn't self-defense? Rival raider group maybe, looking to edge out competition?"

Tony walked through the middle of the scene, arms outstretched as if trying to feel something in the air. "These three died quickly." He waved his hand over the cluster of corpses. "Their weapons are still slung on their slings, or in their holsters. They didn't have a chance to fight back." He walked slowly over to the two dead out in the open, picking up a revolver from one of them. "These fought." He stated, opening the cylinder to let empty cases fall out. "Emptied their guns then turned to run, gunned down from behind." He gestured between the dead, tracing vectors in the air. "All these shots came from the same direction, there." He pointed to the rocky foothill nearby.

Tony shone his flashlight up at the rocks as they came, pointing to the discolored scrapes and craters where bullets had chipped the rock. "Ambushed, from in cover and with a height advantage." He stated, shining the light's beam across the ground until he saw a yellowish twinkle, the group stopping to stand around a small field of glittering, spent brass casings. Tony crouched down, looking at the dispersion. "Automatic weapon, one shooter, lots of spent brass. Probably a light machinegun or an assault rifle with a drum magazine. Fight that short there wouldn't have been time to reload. He stood up, holding up his own rifle and aiming down at the field below, nodding to himself.

"Sneak down from the foothills, bunch of raiders standing in the open, bun three down with one burst, take cover from the return shots and then pick off the stragglers as they try to run. Have to be a pretty good shot at this distance."

Chase raised a brow. "Very impressive." He said simply, and honestly. "Unfortunately we still don't know who did this." He started to take a step, Tony slapping a hand on his chest to stop him. "What?" He asked quickly.

Tony reached down, gently guiding Chase's foot away from a boot print pressed into some stiff earth. "Our shooter left a mark." He said simply, examining it and gently tracing the footprint with his finger. "Hard soled, textured grip, NCR military boots have smooth leather soles. This looks like prewar gear, combat armor, shooter was a bit on the heavy side with the depth here."

Royce whistled. "Nicely done Sherlock." He said with a grin. "So one guy with really nice gear kills five raiders in the desert. And that one guy is not using NCR gear." He summed up as he examined a handful of spent shell casings. "And the raiders might have been paid off with NCR cash to take the job, and the Legion would have actually hired someone competent to do the job if they were behind this." He nodded to himself. "So then if the NCR's the most likely suspect, why is all this brass stamped as NCR military issue?"

Chase took a casing, examining it with a nod, seeing the lettering proudly declaring that it had been produced in the NCR's official national armory in California. "Maybe… we're dealing with someone else entirely here, could be some kind of internal issue with the NCR, not government sanctioned. You'd think that the government would send Rangers to deal with a problem like this, not hire someone else. And they could have just denied trade visas if they wanted to cut caravans off. I don't think we're dealing with the government at all in this equation. Still, there's enough evidence here I think to lean on that ambassador, maybe he'll cough up some interesting."

They poked around the site for another hour, Chase eventually dragging one of the bodies a respectful distance away to feed while the others ate cold ration tins before they set out. The sun was setting and nobody wanted to be out on the wasteland at night with heavy raider activity, so they were going to a nearby town called Halloran Springs to lay over. Besides, they might be able to get some more information while they were in town.

Chase felt strangely off as he walked towards town, the lights already visible across the flat desert plains. He should be feeling good, they had made serious progress in their investigation, and he'd been able to eat his fill. Still, the hairs on his neck were raising again, and he sometimes felt the urge to look over his shoulder. It was probably just nerves, superstition after finding another five person group killed from ambush, they were out of the danger zone, any attack would have happened hours ago, or while they ate. Still, he couldn't help but feel that he was being watched. He looked over his shoulder again, back towards the darkened hills.

A mile away, a figure lay flush with the rocky foothills, obscured by shrubs and long shadows. A large rifle was aimed southward, the scope atop the weapon tuned up to its highest magnification. The figure hadn't dared use it earlier during the day, the flash of reflected light could have instantly given the shooter's position away. The weapon's crosshairs traced over the group walking away towards town, lingering for a long moment on each in turn. As Chase looked over his shoulder, squinting futilely into the darkness, the crosshair centered on his face, a gloved finger thoughtfully caressing the trigger guard before falling away.

XXXXX

Halloran Springs was another tiny town in the same mold as Palm Gardens had been, little more than an overnight rest stop for caravan drives heading up the road. Though this one was considerably more lively and busy looking, considering that the Long 15 was a much more prosperous trading route. Chase momentarily found himself thinking of Lila, he hoped that with the trade route between the Mojave and Big MT, as well as Bullhead, her family business was doing better now. In any case this place was more or less the same, brahmin pens, a tent city of caravaners who chose to sleep under the stars, a hotel, saloon, general store. The squad had, perhaps inevitably, found their way to the saloon and were engaging in some modest drinking as they ate. Chase, having stuffed himself earlier that night, was quietly sipping on a light beer as he listened to the others bantering.

"Oh come on," Tony was saying to Five Card. "You don't like wine? What kind of uncultured barbarian are you?"

"If it don't burn, it don't count." Five Card insisted. "If I wanted to drink fruit juice I'd do that, if I'm getting alcohol I want something that'll hit me, not sit around discussing how the flavor drifts up my nose or some crap like that."

Tony shook his head with a heavy sigh. "You really have no appreciation for the finer things in life do you? Variety is good, sometimes you want something smooth and refined, sometimes you need a brick to the gut, you need to have varied tastes my friend."

The big man shook his head. "Nah, that's just wasting your time! Fruity little things and that flavored soda water Chase's sippin'." He gestured with his head.

Chase frowned. "This is like what I'm used to in Bullhead, just enough alcohol to kill the bacteria in the water, our drinks are a lot stronger than what I'm used to. So unless you really want to see drunker than I've ever been in my life before a potentially dangerous mission, I'm sticking to what I know."

Tony nodded. "Thank you Chase, see? Cultural standards, variety, understanding one's limits, these are all good things you could stand to learn more about, my enormous friend."

Five Card shrugged his broad shoulders. "I guess I like my drinks like I like my women." He said with a grin.

Tony nodded thoughtfully. "Cheap, unrefined and leaving you raw and irritated?"

"No." the heavy gunner said with a glare. "Strong, honest and to the point. If I'm drinking I want something that'll come in heavy with the first shot, if I'm dancing I want my heart thumping on the first song, if I'm screwing I don't want a three week, fifteen step leadup."

Royce gave him a disapproving glance. "That's rather crude, Fives. A little patience can make all three of those things a lot better than just throwing yourself into the middle of it. Besides, if you're that… forward, how many partners do you think you've driven away by making them uncomfortable."

Five Card swept his hands out to the side impressively. "Please, I've slept with more women than I can count."

Tony again nodded sagely. "So more than five then?" He asked, ducking as Five Card tried to cuff him on the ear.

Royce shook his head sadly. "You know it's not all a numbers game, I've had three girlfriends, always too things really slow and easy, and they meant a lot more to me than any number of one night hookups."

"Yes well, you're a hopeless romantic." Five Card said with a wave of his hand. "Not that I'm opposed to romance as a concept, but I gotta keep moving, I've yet to be in a relationship that didn't get old eventually. Get together, have your fun, move on before it turns sour, worked for me so far."

Tony shrugged. "If you go into it from moment one with the prediction it will inevitably end, then it's no wonder why they always 'turn sour'. I've had whirlwind romances that lasted the span of a single evening. Enjoy the time you have with someone, without looking ahead at how it won't last forever. Or more than two hours, in your case."

Chase leaned over to Sawbones, who was sitting next to him. "This is fascinating." He whispered.

The doctor nodded, having been kicked back and watching with rapt attention the whole time. "I could write a documentary when this is all over, the mating habits of the untamed commando in its natural habitat."

"You feel like weighing in?" The mutant asked curiously.

Sawbones chuckled. "Oh no, I'm quite comfortable with myself, and feel absolutely no need to get in on their little competition."

Chase nodded, he didn't feel the need to prove anything either, but he had come to quite enjoy getting in on the banter with his squadmates, more than he'd expected. And given that this was a social setting he thought he could at least chime in. "Don't feel bad Fives, I've lost count as well, so long as you're satisfied then numbers really don't matter."

The big man crossed his arms. "Thirteen." He declared, getting quizzical looks. "Thirteen, that's when I lost count. I was at a party, drinks were had, and I got with someone, several someone's according to a friend, but I didn't really remember it, so I wasn't sure. So after that it didn't seem to matter anymore. Besides, like you said, it's not a competition so long as everybody's happy with what they've got. Just don't try to tell me I'm bad because I know what I like." He glared at Tony.

"I admire your certainty, if nothing else." The other man admitted.

"One hundred." Chase said calmly.

"We each have our own beliefs of… excuse me?" Fives asked, blinking as he registered what was said.

"One hundred," Chase repeated. "I stopped counting after one hundred times. Seemed a little pointless by then."

The squad looked at him for a long, silent moment. "Bullshit." Fives finally said.

He held up his hands defensively. "I worked in a brothel, hit triple digits inside the first year of working there, and I was there for about five years or so. Seemed pointless to count the days and the time eventually, it all kinds blurs together. But if we're discussing simple number of instances. Mind you none of that could be considered a relationship, even a short one."

"You slept with a hundred women… in one year." Five Card said in a slightly hollow voice, staring non-comprehendingly.

Chase shook his head. "No, a lot of my customers were men, I'm not sure the exact statistics. Again, didn't really care."

"Is that normal for your people?" Sawbones asked, as if making mental notes. "The men I mean, usually it's a small fraction of the population that are attracted like that."

Chase shrugged. "No, I think Stalkers and humans are about the same there. I'm equal opportunity I suppose, but most aren't. But pregnancy is very, very scary for us, not just bad breeding, but not enough space or food. Everyone has needs and the only way for a guy to be absolutely sure he isn't going to accidently impregnate a woman is to not sleep with one in the first place. So even if they're not strictly into that a lot were willing to accept me as the safe alternative. Besides I'm not a massive slab of manliness like Fives here, so as long as I kept my face out of sight and mouth shut they could squint their eyes and pretend."

The medic nodded thoughtfully. "Standard Bullhead practice it sounds like, ruthless pragmatism married to incredibly low standards."

Chase chuckled. "About right, still I was glad for the business. But don't any of you envy me. I don't regret what I used to do, I actually quite liked it, but if I could have traded a few hundred enjoyable, but ultimately meaningless partners for just a few ones who meant something, I'd do it. I guess that considering my day job I always found the idea of pursuing a romantic relationship unappealing. Too much like work I suppose." His eyes flicked over to Royce. "I'm just saying, I'm not the one with the enviable love life."

Tony sighed. "Well I'm off to bed, before this conversation degrades further with more alcohol. Fives, nice chatting. Fives?"

The gunner jumped a little, having been staring glassily off into space. "What? I wasn't. Yes?"

The table erupted in laughter.

XXXXX

The next day began with an interesting development. The squad had been getting breakfast when an encrypted radio transmission had come in over Chase's Pipboy, the identification code attached identifying it as coming directly from command. He excused himself from the table, going to the room they had rented out and locking the door before answering.

"Chase here, receiving."

The voice over the radio was unmistakable as Commander Boone. "Chase, we have a new development. The report you sent last night, detailing the battle site you encountered has shaken something loose." Chase listened with rapt attention, an actual lead? "Alaric confronted Ambassador McKinley with it and the ambassador revealed the truth behind the incident."

"Just like that?" Chase asked, surprised that anyone could get information like that so quickly.

When Boone spoke again, there was a hint of amusement in his voice. "Alaric… implied that without knowing the true cause, he would have to assume that some form of secret NCR military operation was being undertaken on the Mojave's border, and that such an action would warrant the intervention of a military peacekeeping force to ensure no further disruptions."

Chase smirked. A bluff, surely. The military was stretched thin, and sending a large force into the border territory would almost certainly escalate tensions, which was exactly the kind of thing an ambassador would want to avoid. "So to avoid an international incident he gave the real truth?" He asked.

"Precisely. The NCR is employing a private contractor to investigate the border situation, what you stumbled across was his handiwork."

Chase was surprised at that revelation. "A mercenary? Why not one of their own people? Surely the Rangers would be suited to an investigation like this."

"Unknown. However in the interests of restoring stable trade and fostering international relations, the ambassador has agreed to make this into a joint venture, if an unofficial one from his end. The mercenary has been contacted and will be rendezvousing with you in Halloran Springs, you will then cooperate in your investigation. It's in both our national interests to see this issue brought to a swift end, so hopefully there will not be any conflict of interest."

"Understood sir. Do we know anything about this contractor?" Chase asked.

"Very little, answers to the handle of 'Bishop', wears a distinctive masked helmet. Beyond that we have no records of the individual at all. The Ambassador only assured us that this Bishop is a professional with an excellent record and will cooperate fully with the mission. Technically this is a joint mission, but I want it understood that we are the ones in charge here, clear?"

"Perfectly, we will be ready to move out as soon as this Bishop arrives." After that he had told the team what they were looking forward to, the squad quickly finishing their food and gearing up for immediate deployment. Ten minutes later they were standing outside the saloon, looking down the road in both directions, waiting for a glimpse of this mysterious mercenary they were to contend with. Occasional groups passed them, sometimes individuals heading around town or down the road, but no hint of what could be called a 'distinctive mask', whatever that was supposed to mean.

They had gotten excited for a moment when someone with a facewrap and pot helmet had walked by, but he just gave them an annoyed glance on his way into the saloon after they tried to ask if he was Bishop or not.

It had been a few hours eventually and they were sitting on some wooden chairs out front of the saloon, Tony and Sawbones playing checkers while they waited.

"Distinctive helmets and codenames." Five Card grumbled. "All very cloak and dagger, just say hello like a regular person for crying out loud."

Tony shrugged. "People value their secrets, politicians doubly so. If there's something dirty going on inside the NCR it's probable that they want it handled quietly, without the obvious legal involvement of the Rangers."

Royce nodded, "That sounds about… hey, hey guys?" He tapped Chase's shoulder insistently, pointing out into the desert. "What do you make of that?"

They stood, looking out at the approaching figure. It walked out of a dust devil as it came, grey-black armor the color of ashes and charcoal from head to foot, the weapon in its hands large and intimidating even at this distance. As the figure came closer Chase started examining some details of the stranger. "Advanced combat armor mark two." He said under his breath to Tony. "Would that leave the kind of footprints you saw?"

Tony nodded. "Certainly would, and the weight would account for the depth."

"Holy fuck." Five Card breathed in what sounded like genuine shock. "Do you see that weapon?"

Chase looked closer now that the armored figure was nearing. The big gun looked like someone had taken a light machinegun and fused it with a sniper rifle. A large muzzle break leading into a heavy frame with a high quality scope on top, fed by a big ammo can like what Fives himself used. "What is it?" He asked, not having seen anything like it before.

"That's a goddamn Bozar." Fives said in what sounded like almost religious awe. "Prewar engineering at its finest, accuracy of a high end sniper rifle and the rate of fire of a light machinegun. That thing is almost, almost as good as a minigun with a fraction of the weight, Bozars are incredibly rare I don't even want to speculate on how he got one."

As the armored warrior walked onto the dusty street before them, Chase finally got a full look at him. The Bozar was indeed spectacular but hardly the only weapon he carried, a boxy machine pistol was in a large leather holster on the right hip, the butt of another pistol emerging from a holster across the left flank in a position to be cross-drawn by the right hand. Below it on the left hip was the handle of a large knife unlike any he'd seen, with a curved blade by the shape of the scabbard. Finally, he saw what exactly the 'distinctive mask' was. The suit of prewar combat armor was in amazing condition, and obviously personalized to some degree. The most obvious was the helmet, instead of the visor over an otherwise open face, this helmet was fully enclosed. The front was sculpted and painted into a stylized skull, with the wearer's eyes hidden behind sunken matte black lenses that made it look like the skull's eye sockets were empty pools of blackness. It looked slightly odd just standing around, but in the heat of combat it might make an enemy freeze or panic for a crucial moment.

The figure finally drew to a halt before them, looking over each of them in turn.

"Bishop?" Chase asked. The figure's black, soulless eyes finally rested on him as he spoke, glaring in silent judgement for a few long moments.

"So, you're the ones I'm supposed to play nice with." The mercenary said, voice distorted and twisted through the helmet's speakers, which evidently included a voice-changer system, rendering the wearer's voice in an eerie, inhuman growl.

"Mojave Special Operations Commandoes." Chase confirmed with a nod. "We are to investigate"

"I know why you are here." Bishop interrupted. "I've been watching you for two days, waiting to see if you'd stir up any more raiders by marching around the place."

Chase frowned. "You treated us like bait." He said simply.

"I had no reason to interact with you. You might have stirred up something useful and if you had, I would have fought on your side even if you didn't know it. But the boss says to be nice so I'll play ball. If M-SOC is half as good as New Vegas Radio claims you are to make people feel good, then you should be alright. Just follow my lead and we'll get out of this with a minimum of bullet holes.

"This is a military operation, you're a civilian." Chase said in the utterly unemotional, even tones he used when negotiating with a picky employer. "You may act as a guide, but do not allow yourself to forget who is in command." He added a hint of sternness to the last statement.

The tension grew thick in the air as he stared down the mercenary, his face just as much an emotionless mask as the death's head Bishop wore. Finally the mercenary shrugged.

"Fine, I get paid regardless of how this turns out. If you must satisfy your pride by waving your authority in my face then go ahead, makes no difference to me. But as you pointed out, I'm civilian, not military, I don't owe you any respect or polite behavior like your grunts." The skull mask jerked towards the others.

"Good." Chase said seamlessly with a little nod. "I much prefer honesty to false politeness."

The helmet tilted slightly, almost as if amused. "Hmm, perhaps I was mistaken, you may not be completely without tact after all." The voice carried a hint of laughter, which sounded rather disturbing through the electronic snarl of the voice-masker. "I hope you continue to subvert my low expectations in the future."

The death's head mask leaned in slightly, locking eyes with him again. "But Chase…" Bishop said in a voice that danced just outside recognition, one black gloved hand reaching up to undo the seals and remove the helmet. Short, crimson locks fell to frame a grinning face, emerald eyes twinkling with mischief and malice. "You had better not walk out on me again."

Chase's emotionless mask shattered in an expression of shocked surprise, taking a small step backwards. "D-Diana!" He exclaimed as recognition clicked. The mercenary he had met in Gomorrah, weeks ago. His stomach tensed up on reflex.

Her smile carried a certain vicious satisfaction as she stood up straight and tall. "Diana Bishop." She introduced herself, resting the butt of the enormous Bozar on one slightly cocked hip. "At your service."

===Author's Note===

I've been looking forward to this reveal for many a chapter now. She wasn't just a meaningless one night stand! This is one of the more awkward ways to start a working relationship.

Reviews, as always, welcomed.


	22. The Howling Wastes

Knight Kruse looked over his assembled troops and gave a curt nod. He found the preparations for their deployment to be acceptable, if not ideal. Ideally there would be trumpeters signaling their march with glorious fanfare, ranks of onlookers throwing white flower petals in their path, and his troops would be mounted upon some worthy steeds with which to sally forth on. Horses wouldn't be able to bear their bulk of course, perhaps giant wolves, or some huge dragon-like mutated lizard would suffice. Sadly no such creatures were readily to hand, so his knights would have to walk all the way to their objective, rather than riding in style.

So no, their deployment was not ideal, however it was adequate in that they were several dozen power armored knights fully bedecked with weapons, gauss rifles, laser and plasma guns, miniguns and medium machineguns here and there, and a few melee weapons to deal with anything that got too close. He himself was clad in his hulking suit of T-51b and armed with a repeating laser rifle, a 12.7mm handgun holstered at his hip, and a super sledge slung through a ring on his back, large head protruding past his shoulder where he could draw it quickly. He found himself also acceptable, his armor pristine save for a few minor dents and scratches from use. He didn't have a cape though. He was a Knight Commander now damnit, he should have a cape.

Still, cape or no cape, he was fully prepared for battle, his troops assembled and ready to march. The nice thing about their hulking power armor was that since it did almost all of the work for you, quick-marching long distances was possible as the suit prevented you from actually dealing with most of the strain of moving, you simply had to direct it from within the climate-controlled interior. He turned to his side, looking at Lord Alaric, as he thought of him, the King of Vegas in a new set of Advanced Power Armor Mk. II and hefting his Vindicator Minigun, axe at his side and what looked like an NCR Service Rifle slung across his chest.

"Milord we are prepared to move out." He said with a nod.

Alaric nodded back. "Indeed Knight Commander, once again you have my thanks. A full regiment of the regular army and a spearhead of roboscorpions are ready to fill the breach once you we open it. Though hopefully we should at least find the front door unlocked."

Kruse nodded, drawing his hammer and waving it one handed through the air, pointing the head west. "Knights! Sally forth!" He commanded, his voice booming from amplifiers on his helmet as they began their march down the long road to The Divide at the quick jog that would eat up the distance in short order, behind them came columns of marching soldiers and robots at a more sedate pace, as well as trucks of supplies and civilian workers to make good on their gains once they secured their first objectives.

XXXXX

Alaric had to say, overall, that he was quite pleased with Veronica's choice of commanding officers for this mission. Newly minted Knight Commander Kruse may have been a bit unconventional in his leadership style, however his histrionics seemed well liked by his fellow Knights and morale seemed high. They had been marching for quite some time, more of a jog really, the long legs of their power armor suits moving with a loping, thumping pace that just ate the miles up and left the occupants barely having to exert themselves as they went along, they were entering The Divide now.

"I tell you milord, we need appropriate steeds." Kruse was saying as they walked along at a more sedate pace now, weapons up with the vanguard troops directly ahead of them as they navigated the narrow passage into The Divide proper. "Aren't you friendly with those tribals up in Zion, they have Yao Guai there right, do you think they could be domesticated?"

Alaric was thankful his helmet hid his near laughter, giving him time to calm down enough to answer. "I'll… I'll put in a word when next I speak with them." He said in as flat and neutral a tone as he could. The image of Kruse shouting some melodramatic battlecry whilst riding a giant mutated bear firmly burned into his mind.

They emerged from the tight passage, out onto a rocky ledge that led into the first of the bunkers, looking down over the burned, windswept remains of Hopeville stretching out below them, the two men stopping for a moment to overlook the vista.

"Such desolation." Kruse intoned, his voice heavy and somber as they gazed upon the storm and chaos that was The Divide. "It must have all been like this, after The War."

Alaric nodded, remembering Tycho's wording, about how the Vault Dweller had walked the wasteland before the fires had all died out. "Yes, it was." He said heavily. "Everything was as wasted and scarred as this, more or less. And now here we are to loot the weapons that would let us do it again." He sighed. "But we can't trust anyone else with that kind of power, best we keep a firm hold on it, if only to ensure nobody else does."

Kruse nodded as they turned and proceeded to the bunker, the door wide open as they marched into the ruined underground structure, Knights fanning out in all directions to sweep and clear the building of any unpleasant creatures that might have gotten inside, though Alaric doubted anything would. He walked over to the door, going into the central chamber with the Titan nuclear missile still resting, skewed to the side in its silo. "And here the great beast sleeps." He intoned.

Kruse looked up at the missile, sighing. "It feels like a dragon, terrible monster from the elder days, sleeping for centuries in a lair full of armor and weapons, waiting for someone to awaken it so that it might bathe the world in fire and wrath."

"You have a way with words my friend." Alaric shook his head, at least Kruse hadn't said 'some fool' when he spoke of awakening this monster. He had seen firsthand what just one of these warheads could do, his old suit of armor protecting him from the blastwave as he burned another scar into the tortured earth. And now here he was, coveting the power to do that again a hundredfold. Were there some things best left sleeping peacefully, would the world be better off if they let places like this molder until they were forgotten and just moved on with their lives? Two hundred years of rebuilding and they were still fighting over Old World scraps and leftovers.

Alaric shook himself from his reverie, looking for the commander's office, ED-E floating along beside him and offering his familiar, reassuring presence. " This bunker will make an ideal base of operations for our exploration." He began, turning his back on the missile and falling back on professional matters to soothe his nerves. "I hacked the automated defenses when I first came through, between the turrets, sentry robots and fortified entrance passage it's a fortress, and the Tunnelers can't dig through steel reinforced concrete, thank goodness."

Kruse shook his head with a quiet snarl. "Tunnelers, they sound like wretched creatures, and formidable fighters."

"That's what the flamethrowers are for." Alaric pointed out. "They hate light, and fire, and the power armor's been fitted with flood lamps. The roboscorpions are also going to be very useful, they're good at shooting fast moving targets and they have some pretty sophisticated sensors, so hopefully we won't be ambushed quite as easily as the NCR and Legion troops were. Still, doesn't pay to underestimate creatures that have killed so many would be conquerors. The Divide has a habit of eating armies alive."

Kruse made a noise that sounded like bestial growling through the static of his helmet speakers. "Then it is fortunate that we are not base slave soldiers or poorly trained conscripts, but Knights of the Brotherhood. These fell creatures shall not find us wanting and we shall drive them from their lairs and into the light of day to burn."

"Kruse, I'm glad you're on my side." Alaric chuckled as he took stock of the base's systems from the commander's terminal.

As he had hoped, the automated systems were intact and functional, having remained in the same defensive standby state he'd left them in after he'd first come through. The sentry bots and turrets had kept the door secure from a few Marked Men incursions with little degradation, the main entrance was a fortified gauntlet of concrete tunnels, automated turrets and a small army of robots. Beyond that, the bunker was surprisingly intact despite having suffered from centuries of neglect. Since being activated the handful of local utility eyebots had done an adequate job repairing key systems and plugging radiation leaks, so the facility would be safe to inhabit without protective gear, and the inventory showed a decent stock of armaments and MREs.

All in all, a fine start to what was sure to be a difficult campaign.

XXXXX

Chase trudged through the dusty desert alongside Diana as the sun beat down from high overhead. It was a hot, unpleasant and windy day with generally nothing at all redeeming about it. Worse than the weather though was their new associate, he refused to call her a 'teammate' even in his mind. Chase was a calm, even tempered man by general habit, not prone to irrationality or dramatic swings of emotion. If in the past he'd run into an unpleasant coworker or client he'd just grit his teeth and bore it with quiet determination until they were gone. But there was something about her that just got under his skin, like a tiny stone in his boot that he couldn't dislodge no matter how he shook and stamped and was slowly driving him insane.

She had spent the better part of the morning as they walked through the desert questioning him on their recent activities against the raider threat, what they knew, what their plan was. Rather than call their operations and choices into direct question, she had shot sideways remarks and implications at him all morning, asking if he had just planned to 'wander around until they found something'. He'd retorted that they had found something, a group of dead raiders, and would probably have been able to take one captive if Diana hadn't gunned them all down the moment she saw them. She had simply shrugged and said that she couldn't take the chance, working alone rather than bringing an entire team.

"So you're one of those Stalkers, right?" She asked as they walked.

He nodded. "Yeah, what gave it away?"

She cocked her head to the side in mock contemplation. "The hair, and I saw you take a bite out of one of the raider corpses the other day." He was determined not to give her the satisfaction of seeming uncomfortable knowing she'd apparently been watching him through a scope for some time. "Explains a few things I suppose."

He walked in silence for a short while, until it became clear she wasn't going to elaborate without prompting. "Like what?" He eventually asked.

She smirked. "Well you're all supposed to be insatiable right? Explains why you were propositioning me like ten minutes after we met."

"It was twenty minutes." He corrected dryly. "And I wasn't propositioning, I was simply asking about your intentions. I had no specific desires one way or another."

She quirked a brow up in a vaguely doubting expression. "Do you just ask everyone who talks to you for more than ten minutes if they want to get laid? You must have a very sad social life."

He glanced over to her, totally deadpan. "Do you make a habit of going up to random men in bars, asking a few questions and then getting in bed if they ask?"

Diana's self-control was a terrible thing to behold as she kept her face relatively neutral despite the spark of anger in her eye. It was gone in a moment but certainly there. "Did he just ask if I was a slut?" She said, turning her withering gaze onto Royce, who seemed to quail and wilt before her.

"Um, I'm sure he didn't mean to… cultural differences and… please don't kill me." He managed to say.

"You're a credit to the uniform." Five Card said cheerily, clapping him on the shoulder.

"I asked a simple question." Chase said in even, uncaring tones. "That behavior is normal in my culture but generally considered shameful here, I thought I might have found a kindred spirit."

The two of them stared at each other for a good long moment, neither willing to break the façade of deadpan calm. Eventually it was Diana who changed the subject.

"In any case, I think that your original plan has some merit, set up along the trade route to ambush the ambush that the raiders are probably going to set up. I pulled a note off one of the dead ones from before, found where they're going to be setting up but couldn't handle it on my own, too many of the bastards. Now that I've got some backup, I'm sure I'll be able to handle things."

"Your assistance is appreciated." Chase retorted. "I'm sure your fire support will come in handy when we engage the enemy."

Still quietly glaring at each other and with the occasional cutting remark disguised as casual conversation, the pair continued to march off to their intended ambush point, the rest of the squad following in tow and watching with the kind of morbid fascination one feels while watching a house burn down.

XXXXX

That first bunker at Hopeville had quickly proven to be a near-ideal base of operations for their expedition into the annexation of The Divide. The power was working, there was plenty of food in the storage facilities, and the small arms and munitions stored there were enough to make supply lines from the Mojave a non-issue for the moment. Nukes or not, just the small arms secured from this operation would be a nice shot in the arm for the Confederation's military might, Vault 34 was pumping out equipment as fast as it could, but the facilities there had never been intended to supply an entire army from scratch. They were expanding as quickly as they reasonably could, but a few warehouses full of R 91 rifles would certainly make for a nice stopgap while they produced the ACE rifles in the numbers needed to outfit a massive army.

Beyond that, and the nuclear missile sitting in its tube like a multi-megaton death threat, there was relatively little else here. It was a good base of operations, well defended and with enough supplies to fuel their expedition's advance, but if they wanted the good stuff, the actual reasons they were here, they would have to press on. First through Hopeville, then over the shattered highways and finally to the central missile silo itself, with its storehouse of dozens of warheads and its automated robot production facilities. If they could get that online they would have a lot of problems solved, not to mention that if they could secure the area, then The Divide itself would eventually become a good prospect for settlement and trade once they cleared out the native wildlife.

Alaric stood outside the armored bunker door as he overlooked The Divide, stretching before him in magnificent desolation. This blighted place, a little taste of the apocalypse, it was in this gauntlet that he had been tested and emerged stronger, his doubts washed away by nuclear fire and replaced by a clarity of purpose. While it would be almost a week before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam saw the NCR and Legion driven from the region, and even longer after that before he had begun to forge the shattered Mojave into a nation, the Confederation had been born here. It was in this blighted place that he had decided at last to commit to the idea of the independent Mojave.

He turned, shaken from his reverie by the thumping of armored boots as Kruse walked up next to him, overlooking the howling windstorms and shattered earth. "I've heard many a tale about this place, terrible monsters and howling storms. Call me superstitious, but I've always felt that some places just don't want to be tamed, like they're alive and resentful."

Alaric nodded his helmeted head. "Yes, this place has been hurt, it's wounded and angry." He said, voice heavy as, for the thousandth time he searched his memory for some shred of what this place had once been, the home he had built here, the people who had thrived in this place before random chance destroyed it. But there was nothing, no recollection of the man he had been before Goodsprings. His life began with a muzzle flash, there was nothing for him here. Had he had friends here? A lover perhaps, children? Had someone he cared about died in that firestorm? He shook his head, perhaps not remembering was a blessing in itself.

"What will we find down there?" Kruse asked, hefting his laser rifle, sounding philosophical.

"Fire. Hatred." Alaric scanned a ridgeline, looking for a familiar silhouette against the storm-torn sky. "And Old World ghosts. Come on, we're burning daylight, I don't want to be moving in this place at night."

The Brotherhood troops at the head, supporting forces trailing behind and everyone's head on a swivel to scan for danger, they moved out. Their pace was cautious and halting, navigating the tortured, shattered streets of Hopeville at a slow pace, squad by squad leap-frogging past each other and covering against possible threats. He knew he'd taken a heavy toll on the Marked Men when he had passed through, especially killing off as many of their leaders as he could find, but he knew they still had to be around here somewhere.

Hopeville was difficult terrain to pass, a wide open, sprawling town shrunk in places to tight bottlenecks by the destroyed terrain and collapsed buildings, and visibility was poor from the windstorms, the constantly howling wind a cacophony on the outside of his helmet as he swept with the Vindicator, targeting reticule tracking across his HUD as he searched for a target or signs of a threat.

The first contact came a good two hours into their slow expedition, a muffled 'crump' of an explosion off somewhere to his left, followed by a torrent of gunfire and energy weapon discharges. Alaric almost shouted a demand for a report into the radio, but bit it down quickly as he remembered his words to Veronica. He wasn't in command of these troops, this was Kruse's show on the front line.

Thankfully, the Knight Commander seemed up to the task, snapping off a quick request for a sitrep with a minimum of flowery language. It was all over very quickly, and soon the situation became clear upon reflection. One of the Brotherhood squads had encountered a Marked Man outpost lying in wait as they got close, and one of the Knights had tripped a mine, warning the enemy of their approach. His armor had protected him and a brief skirmish had broken out, with a liberal application of firepower quickly securing their victory.

Alaric scanned the sky, no flares had been shot up, that was good. For the moment at least their advance had gone unnoticed by the rest of the irradiated madmen dwelling here, but for how long? He thought back to Kruse's melodramatic description earlier, that this place felt like it was alive and actively hostile towards invaders. How far could they advance before the forces inhabiting this place awoke to their presence, when the glinting of their armor would be seen by keen, hateful eyes, or their heavy footfalls disturb something terrible beneath the irradiated soil.

He shook his head, silently cursing Kruse and his poetic speech, now he was reading into every little thing as if it was some fantastical legend. For now he was simply glad that their arrival had gone unnoticed by the main hostile force occupying the territory, and that the situation was unlikely to remain that way indefinitely. He began walking forward again, trusty Vindicator held in a relaxed grip, knowing that he had walked this lonesome road before with only one robot for company, now he was bringing an army. He would be fine, a few crazed ghouls and lizardmen wouldn't deter a force this powerful and disciplined.

He glanced up at a ruined building on instinct, eyes locking on what might have been a human figure standing atop the shattered tower high above him, looking down judgingly at the spectacle laid out on the ground. Or he might just be jumping at shadows again. Keeping his eyes firmly on the path before him, Alaric marched on, deeper into the howling, unending storm of The Divide.

XXXXX

The Brotherhood task force had cleared past the Hopeville bunker complex in good order, it seemed that the Marked Men had largely pulled back from this area, so they only had that one outpost of stragglers to deal with. Really it had only been a few weeks since he had last been here, and inflicted heavy casualties on the locals as he had walked this lonesome road. Alaric wondered, however, how much harder the trip might be with a whole army attracting attention, would they slaughter their way through the twisted denizens of this blighted city? Or would their marching feet call a horde of horrors down upon them, when he had passed largely unnoticed through this place? Again, only time would tell.

The wind howled outside his helmet and flying sand pressed close against his eye lenses, combined with the slowly shrinking daylight they were facing severe problems with visibility. Eventually they were forced to bunker down in Hopeville, various Brotherhood units taking refuge in the headquarters building on the northern edge of the destroyed town, while others took refuge in the various barracks and armories, not wishing to brave the High Road at night during the constant sandstorm, as the prospect of facing Deathclaws in zero visibility did nothing good for Alaric's nerves.

Alaric had stepped out of his power armor, walking about in his utilitarian jumpsuit, listening to the crunch of shifting rubble as a few armored knights were using their strength to clear some of the blockages in the other halls.

"Makes me wonder what it must have been like." Kruse mused as he looked at a power armored figure waving the American flag atop a pile of corpses, resplendently presented on a propaganda poster promising imminent victory over the communist hordes. "To live before the war." He clarified, nodding to the poster. "To be part of such a huge nation, so much technology at their fingertips, and so much fear."

Alaric walked over to stand beside the armored giant. "It seems petty looking back on it, that they were squabbling over more resources when to us they already lived in paradise. You could travel from one end of the continent to the other and not have to fear being attacked by wildlife or bandits, there was enough food to go around, nuclear power to run everything, robots, radio... television." He shrugged.

"The more you have, the more you want." Kruse intoned sadly. "People don't realize how good they have it until it's all gone, nobody appreciates what they already have, always need more. America annexed Canada for its resources, to fuel its expanding war machine, provide for the people, strengthen the economy, all the same justifications ever used."

Alaric nodded. "And here we are, centuries later and the NCR tries to annex the Mojave for all the same reasons, bolster the economy, protect the people, establish a better world. And now we're annexing The Divide for pretty much the same reasons." He sighed. "Gotta wonder how long we're going to keep doing the same thing over and over, keep making the same mistakes again and again."

The knight nodded. "Yes, we always do. That is why men like you must rise to the challenge milord, the battle never ends, neither victory nor defeat is ever final, the battle simply goes on."

Alaric sighed deeply. "And what about you Kruse? Where do you fit into this unending battle of good and evil."

The warrior laughed. "Why, I am a knight lord, it is your place to inspire and lead, mine to lead the charge sword in hand." He said proudly.

"Kruse, you have a hammer." He pointed out.

The armored figure shrugged. "Figure of speech." He said in a slightly miffed tone.

Their conversation was interrupted as another knight tromped into the room, his every footstep dislodging a small shower of dust from the cracked ceiling. "Knight Commander, Lord Alaric, we've discovered something we think you should see in one of the cleared passages."

Idly wondering when people started calling him 'Lord', Alaric followed the other massive figures through one of the recently cleared hallways until they entered what seemed to be a well stocked armory. "Nice find." He said with a nod.

One of the knights hefted a small, shoulder mounted minigun, trying the heft of the 10mm weapon. "Interesting design, haven't seen anything like this before, smaller than an Avenger, lighter too."

"Made for airborne troops apparently." Alaric noted, having done some research on the weapons on the Lucky 38 mainframe out of curiosity. "The Air Force had some rather interesting weapons programs right before the war, that one was originally meant for their para-commandos, I'm actually hoping to put a new production version into service as soon as I can."

The knight nodded, practicing aiming with the weapon. "It seems a fine weapon, I think I'll hold onto this one." He said happily, going to find some magazines for his new toy.

Kruse was poking through some of the lockers, before he paused and made a slow audible gasp of curiosity and astonishment. "What do we have here?" He said curiously, drawing out a short boxy tube. At the touch of a control the weapon extended in both directions, a targeting display folding out of the side.

Alaric grinned. "That, my dear knight, is the RDG-13. Red Glare, by its nickname, rapid fire rocket launcher, meant mostly to engage infantry targets. Another thing I'm hoping to put into mass production once we get the small arms industry running smoothly. You can keep that one if you like, I already have two back in Vegas, I'm hoping to find the schematics somewhere around here but at this rate we might have to take a few apart to reverse engineer them."

Kruse nodded with reverence, shouldering the weapon and quickly finding the pump-action loading control, slotting a 13 rocket canister into the advanced weapon. "Indeed a formidable weapon." He said fondly, finding a large sling to attach it to his armor so he could switch between it and his laser rifle. "Thank you Lord."

Alaric chuckled, wondering if it was good or bad that he was getting used to people speaking to him like royalty. "Don't thank me yet good sir knight, you're probably going to need that before this expedition is over."

===Author's Note===

I live! And the story isn't abandoned! Huzzah!

Sorry for the wait to all my loyal readers, it seems life realized it hasn't been kicking me in the teeth enough lately and decided to correct that oversight. But I'm alive, sane, and most importantly to you all, writing again.

Hope to see some new reviews with your thoughts and reactions, as always they are very welcome.


	23. Teeth and Claws

The Mojave wind howled forlornly over the desert as the M-SOC squad, plus one, set down to camp for the night in a little ravine, a small fire flickering in the center of their little ring of bedrolls and personal belongings, the group eating a dinner of preserved food after a long day's march. The ambush that Diana's stolen schedule mentioned wasn't to take place until the next day, so for the moment they simply had nothing to do other than rest up for the coming fight. Chase was coming to appreciate that military service was made up of extremely long periods of tedious boredom broken up by occasional brief moments of lethal danger.

Nobody had spoken for a while, having eaten their rations in silence, currently the only sound was coming from Tony, a steady grinding sound as he carefully sharpened his machete with careful, gentle movements as if it was some kind of ritual rather than simple maintenance. Eventually, it was Diana who broke the silence.

"You make that yourself?" She asked, nodding to the machete. It was a simple thing, a straight piece of metal with a sharpened blade and a crude leather wrap around the handle, obviously well worn and heavily used.

Tony looked up, startled from whatever thoughts he'd been contemplating. "Hmm? Oh, no." He said with a shake of his head. "It was given to me, in my old life." He sighed. "I'm a reformed bastard." He clarified quickly, holding up one hand to ward off questions. "This thing has been with me a long time, seen me through more than my share of scrapes to be honest."

Diana nodded, cradling her Bozar like a child. "Some weapons just have history to them. Mean something to you, like a companion more than anything."

Five Card fidgeted a bit, before he sat up to speak. "Where'd you get that? The Bozar, I mean. I've read about them, they're beyond rare." He held up his LMG, taking a cloth and cleaning it a little. "I mean I'm quite fond of this little wonder, but this was mass produced, how did you get your hands on something that was experimental when the war happened?"

Diana grinned. "Oh, same as how I got all these guns, it was a gift." She said with a grin. "From my granddad."

"Must have been quite a man to use that thing." Royce said with a nod towards the scoped machinegun.

Diana gave a fond chuckle. "Oh you could say that. Tribal warrior out of this little village called Arroyo. Went on a big quest to save his village that took him walkabout across most of California, all through the NCR and beyond. Eventually he walked through New Reno, spent a little time there and, about nine months later, my dad was born." She said with a smirk.

"Wait." Sawbones said, putting two and two together, until he finally blinked in shock. "You're a Bishop, as in the New Reno Bishops?"

"Should that mean something?" Chase asked with a shrug.

"The Bishops were one of the most powerful crime families in New Reno!" The medic exclaimed with an emphatic nod.

"Emphasis on were." Diana pointed out with a raised finger. "The Wrights ended up taking the town over more or less and shifting it to more legitimate business, Bishops felt the winds changing and went along with it."

Royce shook his head. "Can't believe your granddad was crazy enough to sleep with the daughter of the Bishop patriarch." He said with a funny little grin, like he thought it was both funny and insane.

"Daughter and wife." Diana corrected with a roll of her eyes. "Granddad was a crazy bastard, turned out to be some big damn hero or something but to me he was just my grandpa. He came back through town a few years later, found out he had left a son behind, made sure to swing through every so often and keep in touch. I remember I'd sit with him and listen to his stories by the fireplace, all kinds of crazy stuff. Talking deathclaws and chess playing radscorpions, blowing up an oil rig with a nuke." She shook her head. "Man was a walking armory too, tons of guns, eventually left me with a couple of his favorites. Figure I decided to go be a merc after listening to all those stories of badassery and adventure." She said with a smirk.

"So he left you his Bozar?" Five Card said, whistling as he shook his head, "Hell of a man."

She nodded with a grin, reaching for her hip holster. "Left me this too." She drew out a very unusual looking handgun, it looked like some kind of revolver, but its frame was very boxy and angular, and there were glowing LED lights on the cylinder. Five Card stared at it, enraptured.

"That... That..." He stammered, eyes like dinner plates.

Diana's smirk widened. "Yes, the Deckard Industries model 1." She held the weapon aloft, pressing a button to make the cylinder swing out with a little whir, five 5.56 rounds tumbling out. "5.56 automatic revolver, highly experimental prewar firearm. You'll see some guns like this about the wasteland, most are just cheap copies made in post war factories, only a few of the originals were ever made before the war. If you need a gun that will fire the most powerful, ass-kicking rifle rounds with speed and accuracy, absolute reliability and all in a small, concealable package?" She chuckled. "This, is That Gun."

"Why though, if you already have a machinegun in 5.56?" Chase asked, noting she had two weapons for the same round.

"Like I said, sometimes you need concealment." She repeated, before she reached to her belt, withdrawing a round who's tip had been painted entirely red. "That and I use them to fire these, I make them myself, call them FYS rounds. Stands for 'Fuck Your Shit'." She explained. "Ultra high pressure armor piercing rounds with a high explosive charge, very expensive to make, but if you're going up against a deathclaw or some guy in power armor and it absolutely, positively must die, accept no substitute." She carefully loaded four normal rounds and one FYS round into the cylinder. "If you tried to fire one of those through an automatic, even the Bozar, it'd shred the action, only a revolver like this can handle the high pressure." She explained before replacing the weapon in its holster.

Tony chuckled. "Well, I don't think I have anything that fancy but, I do have this." He withdrew his sidearm, Chase had never seen him use it before. It was a revolver, older looking than his own, double action and covered in understated but elegant traceries and highlights. ".357 magnum revolver, centuries old and still works like a charm. My ancestors carried this with them when they first came from the far east to settle in Arizona, I think. Family moved around a lot after that, Denver, California, Nevada, all over the damn place, but this." He tapped the revolver. "Always with us. Pretty much the one thing I have from my ancestors, still doing its job."

There were nods and murmurs of appreciation around the campfire, before they fell silent again. Eventually chase shifted a bit, laying his AK over his lap. "I really don't know anything about this." He admitted, patting the wooden handguard fondly. "I found it in an abandoned tunnel one day. But this thing has saved my life more times than I can count, and having it is what let me change careers and eventually find my way out here. It's more than just a weapon for me." He admitted, stroking over its sturdy steel construction. "It's like a part of me, an extension of my body, I can't see myself giving this up."

"May I?" Diana asked gently, holding out her hand.

Chase hesitated for a moment, checking to make sure the chamber was cleared before reluctantly handing it over.

Diana took it, treating the weapon as if it was made of glass as she slowly turned it in her hand, studying it intently. "Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947. Produced... 1950, Izhmash armory..." She whistled, looking suitably impressed. "The serial numbers all match, this is a fully intact original production AK 47, do you have any idea how rare something like this is these days? It's quite an amazing find." She handed it back reverently.

Chase ran a hand over the trusty, well worn stock and slightly scratched metal. "Yeah, it was." He admitted after a quiet moment. "This rifle changed my life, saved it many times, wouldn't be here without it."

They made small talk for a little while after that before eventually turning in to sleep. Before he slipped off, Chase eventually admitted to himself that perhaps their new companion wasn't completely insufferable. Still, talking deathclaws? No way in hell.

XXXXX

The next day dawned over The Divide like most did, with the howling winds of the tortured earth continuing unabated, the sun lighting the sky on the far side of the nigh perpetual dust storm just enough to make it look like the sky itself was a great unending fire glimpsed through smoke. Alaric pitied the regular infantry who had to operate in this kind of environment, with gasmasks, face wraps and goggles to protect them rather than environmentally sealed power armor. At least their ACE rifles were reliable enough to function properly despite the constantly blowing sand and grit that could cause a less robust design to foul and jam.

They had set out from Hopeville, moving a sort distance east, taking things slow and cautious as they moved along, but no further ambushes or traps were sprung. "They've probably fallen back to consolidate on the far side of the High Road." Alaric postulated over the radio to Kruse.

"Quite likely, if you spoke truly about the dangers that place holds, it would offer a fine choke point to defend against trespassers." The Knight Commander agreed.

"Not to mention it's deathclaw infested." Alaric added, remembering all too vividly the terrible beasts that dwelled on that road. "Wish we weren't going into this blind."

Kruse nodded. "Indeed, a shame that we could not perform some form of aerial reconnaissance."

"Yeah, shame." Between the visibility-blocking dust storm, heavy small arms carried by the Marked Men, and the possibility that they might have salvaged some kind of actual anti-air defensive system from the ruined base, there wasn't a chance in hell that Alaric was going to fly their only functioning Vertibird overhead to get an eye in the sky. Which was a shame, because now they were walking into hell itself basically blind.

Soon they reached the next leg of their journey. The High Road was just beyond, but first they had to pass through the entryway, formed of broken rubble and torn earth, the entrance yawning before them like some terrible maw, broken concrete teeth poised to snap down on them once they entered.

"Alright. Now things get really dangerous." Alaric said with a nod. "Underground area, tightly packed."

The Knight Commander nodded. "Indeed, then let us not proceed blindly. Bring up the bloodhounds!" He ordered, the Brotherhood formation shifting as new members came to the front, hefting their weapons.

While their expedition did include a number of cyberdogs repurposed from Big MT, they would be called upon later, once they reached the ruins of the city proper to track down tunneler nests and Marked Men hideouts. In this case 'bloodhound' was slang for a knight who carried a very advanced, sophisticated piece of sensor equipment. Namely, a dog's brain in a jar bolted onto a large gun.

The K9000 cyberdog gun was yet another bizarre but unquestionably effective invention of the mad geniuses of Big MT. A large three barreled repeater feeding .357 ammunition with an onboard sensor system composed of a cyberdog brain and a series of visual, audio and olfactory sensors. The K9000 combined a powerful heavy weapon with a sophisticated sensor suite that could smell, hear and see in ranges beyond that of any human, and feed that information directly into the power armor's HUD. Originally intended to help American power armor troops avoid being bushwhacked by Chinese stealth suit users, they would hopefully help them avoid being ambushed by subterranean humanoid lizards as well.

The rest of the Brotherhood spearhead formed up inside the forward wedge formed by the bloodhound unit as they began advancing into the darkened entrance to the High Road, some of the bloodhounds keeping on the back flanks and sweeping their weapons to help avoid being ambushed from behind. As they entered the gloom of the artificial cave they activated helmet mounted lights, bright white cones illuminating the dust in the air as heads craned this way and that. Kruse swept for targets with his automatic laser rifle, even someone as enthusiastic as him knowing that firing a fully automatic rocket launcher in a structure composed entirely of loose rubble was a very bad idea.

The bloodhounds and their escorts took the advance nice and slow, sweeping the triangular barrels of the K9000s in steady arcs, each footstep careful and measured. Wind howled, rubble creaked, dust swirled, and the occasional pitter patter of falling rock could be heard, the calm before the storm stretching as the group moved further into the rubble cave.

"Sensor's having a hard time." One of the bloodhounds commented. "This place stinks of the beasts so much it can't smell anything new, it's confused." He said, patting the weapon's casing in a reassuring way before returning his hand to the grip. It seemed some of the knights were a little fond of their new weapons.

One of the forward guard stiffened, barrels snapping up to scan quickly.

"Contact?" Kruse asked. "Have you sighted one?"

The knight shook his head. "No sir, but the gun picked up on something, we've got movement." He said, the gun emitting a low threatening growl and presumably feeding a wash of sensory data to the wielder's HUD to communicate what it was sensing.

"Circle up." Kruse ordered, "Firing ranks."

The force closed ranks, the bloodhounds with their sweeping weapons at the front, crouching down or going to one knee as the others formed up within the ring, ready to fire between the gaps and over their comrades shoulders. Again, the silence stretched, the wind howled.

Then a sudden burst of gunfire and an animalistic scream somewhere behind him. "Contact!" The knight barked into his radio. In that instant the calm was shattered and it all went to hell. Suddenly the tunnelers were boiling out of every shadow, charging towards them in that disturbingly fast four legged charge of theirs. Practically as one the outer ring of bloodhounds opened fire together, weapons chattering loudly as fountains of smoking brass ejected from their heavy guns.

Alaric turned in place, mashing the firing stud on his Vindicator and laying in a long burst into a trio of subterranean spawn that ripped their way out of the ground just outside the firing line. Kruse's laser rifle was spitting a near continuous ruby beam into the monsters, before he pivoted in place and drew his heavy pistol with his off hand, blasting a monster's face into pulp as it rose up from the ground just in front of him. "Inner circle, watch the ground! They come up within our perimeter!" He warned, returning the 12.7mm handgun to its holster before snapping up the rifle to continue shooting.

The tunnelers seemed without number, shrieking, hissing, coming out of every shadowed nook in a solid wave of rippling scales and flashing claws, rending at power armor and weapon, clawing at ankles as they dug up from the ground below. Stamping feet broke their wrists and shattered skulls, weapons fire tore their bodies apart and vaporized them, but they kept coming. They were strong and smart, used to fighting things bigger than themselves, slashing at armor joints, elbows, knees, necks, drawing blood, injuring, putting their victims off balance. One leaped up to latch onto a knight's chest and slash at his throat, the knight's companion tearing it off, but in doing so opening up a window for more to charge in without the constant fire tearing them apart.

A piece of concrete pinged loudly off of Alaric's shoulder guard and on instinct he looked up. "They are above us as well!" He shouted, snapping his smoking Vindicator up to fire at the roof. He keyed his GRX implant, time slowing to a stop as he fired. To an outside observer he looked like some kind of automated anti-air weapon, twisting the screaming minigun through the air as fast as his overclocked body could, stopping just long enough to drill another burst into a creature, bodies dropping in torn and shredded heaps from the ceiling high above.

Thankfully, their one good defense was the circle of light projected by the high power spotlights attached to their helmets, blinding and dazzling the creatures, making them hesitate just enough to lose a little momentum, but even still. If they dropped down from above it was all over, they would have the advantage they needed, and every knight firing up at the ceiling now was another one not firing into the advancing sea of scale and claw.

"ENOUGH!" A voice shouted, booming over even the roar of dozens of heavy weapons. Alaric glanced over just in time to see that he had been entirely wrong.

Kruse swung the Red Glare launcher up to his shoulder in his right hand, his left having taken the laser rifle and was firing it from the hip, he couldn't hope to miss with all the targets in such close proximity. Shouting an inarticulate battle cry through his helmet speakers, Kruse fired the rocket launcher one handed, twisting in place to fire a sustained burst. Rockets screamed point blank into the horde, each explosion a blinding point of light in the darkened cave, generating an expanding cloud of shredded hide and pulped meat, decimating a full forty five degree arc before the weapon's 13 rocket ammo canister was spent.

But the firestorm did not end there. Something within the fallen concrete rubble detonated in a flash that might have been blinding if not for his tinted helmet visor, a sudden crackling from his Geiger counter making his stomach drop like a stone. This was a collapsed highway, there were fusion engines scattered in the rubble, too much damage and they consumed all their remaining fuel in one rather dramatic burst of energy.

"Everyone out!" Kruse ordered, coming to the same conclusion and bellowing his command as if he didn't trust the radio to relay it properly. "Don't mind the vermin just get out, follow me!" He shouted, drawing his hammer and swinging it in wide arcs, each one sending a handful more monsters flying off to the side in various states of disassembly.

They charged as one, knights dragging wounded comrades and everyone firing madly, the gunfire so thick it seemed to fill all the air in the cave with flying lead and energy bursts. They battered tunnelers aside and trampled them to mush underfoot as they charged towards the light of the exit on the far side, the tunnel seeming to grow longer and longer the more they ran, all about them was the groaning and creaking of disturbed rubble and the explosions of engines as their neglected containment bottles were breached.

Finally they shot from the cave and onto the High Road like a blast from a cannon, the blood-soaked and haggard group of armored warriors climbing up the slope of the overpass, before turning their weapons back down on the collapsing entrance cave. Explosions continued to sound within the rubble as it collapsed at last, settling with a huge plume of dirt and dust, before a huge ground shaking detonation sounded somewhere within. Any tunnelers lured in by their presence would have been rendered into radioactive mush by this point.

Kruse, standing the closest to the rubble, smoking launcher on his shoulder, turned to look at Alaric, the two men gazing at each other in silence for a long moment.

"Cave system cleared, Lord." Kruse eventually said in a steady, professional voice as rubble continued to clatter down around him and ping off his armor.

XXXXX

Chase, upon reflection, had decided that this was one of the less comfortable positions he'd ever been in. There had been much time for reflection, as he had been in his current pose for the past five hours. He lay on his belly, in full armor, including his riot gear facemask and helmet, on the sand along the dry riverbed. He was concealed by a few scraggly shrubs and beneath a sand colored camouflage blanket which was itself covered over with more sand. Here he had lain, feeling like a trapdoor spider, for the better part of the morning, one hand wrapped around the pistol grip of his rifle, waiting for their prey to blunder into the ambush.

They had reached this position fairly early in the morning, as marked on the map Diana had pulled off the dead raiders. This was where they were to set up their ambush for the trade caravan that would be coming through later that day. So the squad had gotten there and set up their own ambush first. Simple plan really, he fully approved, it would probably work just fine. He just wished that he didn't have to lay perfectly still in full armor for hours on end while the sun slowly baked him alive.

At one hour in he had been trying to form a mental listing of every single strange and conflicting custom the locals of the Mojave practiced that baffled him to no end. This had diverted him until roughly the third hour, after which he had begun cooking up ways to needle his companions in various ways for his own amusement, including inventing fabricated Stalker traditions and holidays, fictional biological processes and a list of bizarre or outrageous things he could do while stoically pretending it was perfectly normal.

By the fifth hour he had grown truly desperate and begun ranking his squadmates by order of attractiveness and formulating arguments for why each them should pursue a romantic relationship with any of the others, a train of thought that he fully blamed on his increasingly hot helmet cooking his brain inside his skull. Thankfully, eventually some bloodthirsty bandits came along to distract him from such visions with the prospect of life and death combat, which was considerably less disturbing than the hypothetical dinner date with Five Card that had been playing through his heatstroke addled mind.

There were eight of them, hard looking men with unshorn hair and unwashed bodies and suddenly Chase was quite glad of the gas mask hooked into his helmet that spared his sense of smell.

"Targets entering the ambush zone." Royce's voice crackled over the radio, the sniper already set up high on the rocks and ready, the rest of the squad in other concealed positions at varying distance from the ambush site.

Five Card responded. "Yeah got them in the crosshairs, all bunched together too."

"We need at least one alive, Five Card, watch your fire." Chase reminded softly, back in predator mode as he lay waiting for the right moment to strike, the targets drawing closer and closer, telling evidently amusing stories he really didn't want to listen to very closely.

He waited until they had gotten to within about twenty yards of his concealed position before he spoke again. "Royce, scatter the herd, one shot."

"Roger."

A moment later a puff of red vapor exploded from the chest of the lead raider and his legs turned to jelly as he collapsed, just before the distant crack of the gunshot caught up with the target. The bandits immediately broke into a flurry of profanity as they broke apart in all directions, scattering out from the dead one face down in the wasteland dirt. "Clear them out." Chase ordered calmly, and a moment later was answered with a fusillade of gunfire from various other concealed positions.

There was nowhere to hide, raiders were gunned down with impunity left and right, accurate fire from Sawbones and Tony while Diana and Five Card opened up long, roaring bursts from their support weapons, tracing little puffs of kicked up sand and dirt where they stitched lines of fire across the wasteland soil and into targets, cutting them down like wheat. Soon there were two left, throwing themselves down into a dip in the earth right in front of Chase's position, the only cover to be had in the killing field. In fact, they'd dug it themselves that morning. The raiders were clearly panicked, firing their weapons wildly at whatever they thought was a threat, both guns soon clicking empty. Before they had a chance to reload, Chase acted.

He rose from his prone position, dust swirling and the camouflage blanket falling away in the light wind, bringing his rifle to bear on the two prone, cowering men. "I have had a very bad morning." He growled through his gasmask when he was sure he had their undivided attention. "And I only need one prisoner alive. Do not piss me off." They both nodded dumbly, hands above their heads.

XXXXX

A few minutes after the conclusion of the brief firefight the squad had piled the bodies of the slain raiders in a pile off to the side. Evidently it was considered standard practice to burn the bodies if you had the time to do so, a practice Chase heartily disapproved of. Thankfully he had used his authority as squad leader to make the others hold off on that until at the very least he had refilled his ration stores. Currently their two prisoners were on their knees being watched by Tony and a rather bellicose Five Card who, if Chase was any judge, was suffering from some kind of inferiority complex in the presence of Diana Bishop's superior equipment.

Speaking of, he was standing off with the mercenary, glancing back at the prisoners.

"Look, I've done this kind of thing before." Diana was telling him conspiratorially. "Handled interrogations of just this kind of scum, let me handle this."

Chase crossed his arms, feeling conflicted. On the one hand she probably did have more experience dealing with this, and they had already agreed to share all gathered information. On the other, he was feeling perhaps the first pangs of territorial jealousy in his life and was in no way pleased about someone coming in and taking his authority away from him after showing little to no respect since joining forces.

"We'll handle it together." He said in the firm, even tones he used to show that he was absolutely dead set on being stubborn about something.

"Fine, but let me start." Diana insisted. "First impressions are very important in an interrogation and I have the experience here."

He thought about it for a moment but eventually relented, it did make sense. "Alright, you start, but don't step on my toes."

Diana's grin might have made a deathclaw feel distinctly nervous. "Don't worry, I'm good at improv."

With that little smile on her face, she turned on her heel and marched bold as brass right at the raiders. "Good morning wasteland scum." She began cheerily, charcoal body armor and red hair making her look like some lady knight out of an old fantasy comic. "As you have no doubt realized by now the only reason either of you is alive is simple random chance, that and we needed someone to start talking. As my compatriot made clear before though, we only actually need one of you, so please keep that in mind." She continued marching steadily closer, voice all sweetness and light. "I'm sure these military types have some rather specific rules about the treatment of prisoners, namely that they're not allowed to just beat you until you start coughing blood. Unfortunately for you, I am most certainly not military." She stopped right in front of them, planting her booted foot on a small rock, fists on her hips and back ramrod straight. "And these are my shit-kicking boots." She said with evident satisfaction.

They were rather impressive boots all told, with big steel caps on the end and far too many buckles to be practical in Chase's opinion, but she seemed to have the raiders undivided attention so her method seemed to be working so far.

"Now I would really rather not have to clean any part of my armor should it physically come into contact with either of you." She continued. "But it would not be the first time I had to walk back to town covered in blood. So! Let's keep things nice and civil shall we?"

Chase stepped forward, deciding to interject before either of the prisoners had a chance to respond. "Excuse my… companion here." He said, searching for the right word. "She's a little overzealous. Though she is correct in that she answers to a different authority and is not bound by our rules, though it is important to note that we were given carte blanche to carry out this assignment."

"That means he can do whatever he wants." Diana added helpfully.

"Quite." The mutant responded tersely. "So I'll make this simple. Tell us who you work for and where you operate out of, and I'll deliver you to someone much more merciful than either of us."

"Fuck you!" The raider on the right spat angrily, the one on the left nodding along but not seeming very talkative himself.

"How imaginative!" Diana declared, clapping her gloved hands slowly. "Or was that a statement of intent? Didn't peg you as a man's man, more of a…" She considered thoughtfully. "More of a spiked drink man, or a fourth in line for the whore man, is that about right?"

"Bishop." Chase said in a tone of long suffering patience. "This is not the time for such discussion."

Both men went white. "Y-You're… a Bishop?" The one on the left said nervously.

"You shut the fuck up!" The one on the right snapped.

Diana smiled in a very chilling way. "Firstborn of the big man himself, it's so nice to be recognized."

Chase held up his hand. "Nobody's parentage is important here, we just need some simple information, there's no need to make this complicated."

Diana shook her head. "Yes, you're right, this is wasting time. Besides, it would be best for both of you if this finishes quickly. My companion here is a Stalker you see, you know, cannibalistic mutant with an insatiable hunger for human flesh?" He wondered where she was going with this. "I think it's probably best that you conclude this interview before he gets hungry."

Royce was standing behind the prisoners, making a 'go along with it' gesture with his hands and nodding energetically where they couldn't see.

Chase pretended to think about it. "Well, I suppose I am a bit puckish, do you even know what they put in these ration tins?" Diana shook her head. "Me neither, it's not labeled and it tastes like nothing identifiable. A little fresh meat could probably do me some good."

"Bullshit, that's just ghost stories." The defiant prisoner retorted.

Royce made an exaggerated snarling expression and put his index fingers in front of his mouth to mime big pointy fangs. Chase smiled slowly, revealing his rather dangerous looking teeth, the canines just large enough to be noticeably bigger than regular humans. "Care to test that?" He asked before licking his teeth.

Diana shook her head. "No, no, down boy, no eating the prisoners. You have all those bodies over there." She said sternly.

"But I like them alive and juicy." Chase protested throwing a little petulant, childish whine into his voice, making Diana rub her forehead in feigned exasperation and Royce contain laughter with visible effort.

"Look." Diana said flatly. "I don't actually have any power to restrain him, so unless you want to start losing bite sized chunks I think you should really start talking now."

"N-Not telling nothing." The formerly defiant prisoner on the right mumbled, not meeting Chase's grey eyes.

Royce stood behind the prisoners again, making another snarling expression and swiping his hands through the air, making pretend claws with his fingers. Play the monster, he seemed to say. Well, that might work, and they weren't getting anything so far so… why not.

Diana was launching into a speech about how 'not telling nothing' was grammatically incorrect, but Chase decided to interrupt. The Stalker's hand flashed out, grabbing the arm of the right side prisoner and pulling it forward as he leaned in, opening his jaws and snapping a bite down on his forearm. Immediately the whole scene erupted in a lot of screaming and profanity. Total overreaction really, he'd just barely broken the skin enough to taste blood. He quickly found himself hauled off of the prisoner, who promptly fainted and collapsed to the desert floor, Diana and Five Card bodily dragging the mutant away.

"What the fuck are you thinking?" Diana demanded, looking genuinely shocked that he'd followed her idea through to its ultimate conclusion. "You're not actually supposed to hurt the prisoners!"

"That's just a flesh wound." He said dismissively, Sawbones already treating the minor bite mark as Chase cleaned his bloody mouth with a cloth.

"We were just trying to scare them!" She snapped.

"Pain is scary!" He protested. "Besides, it worked." He jerked a thumb over at the conscious raider who was in the process of rattling off everything he knew to Royce so fast he might eventually pass out from forgetting to breathe.

Eventually Royce had managed to calm the prisoner down enough to give a coherent debriefing, making careful notes on what the man said. It seemed that as long as Chase stayed far enough away he would remain perfectly calm, which suited the mutant just fine as he spent the time butchering one of the raider corpses before they set the pile of bodies on fire. Once the other raider had awoken to find his wound bandaged and already scabbing over, they had all marched back to town with their prisoners in tow, Diana shooting him dirty looks all the way. Chase, for one, was quite satisfied with his performace, and retuned her sharp glares with pleased smiles, fang-like teeth gleaming in the light.

===Author's Note===

A couple battles to break up all the talking, a little world building with discussion of various weapons from across the world, and Chase being Chase because nobody else wants to be or knows how.

Really, not much else to say, hope to hear your thoughts in the reviews section, thanks for reading as always.


	24. Ashes on the Wind

It had taken a good hour or two to get the expedition moving again after the collapse of the cave like entrance to the High Road, the only feasible path forward through The Divide. They had waited until the secondary explosions of breached car engines had finally stopped rumbling beneath the broken concrete, and then watching carefully for some time for signs of movement or surviving tunnelers. Eventually it was decided that any surviving creatures seemed to have scattered, and they had begun moving forward again, Army troopers picking their way across the resettled rubble to reach the overpass that led over more of The Divide's ruined expanse.

"Right, now just to transit the likely deathclaw infested overpass, then through more tunneler burrows and the heart of the Marked Men population." Alaric summarized as they began marching again.

Kruse patted the RDG-13 rocket launcher fondly. "And a fine showing it shall be." He said with satisfaction, evidently very fond of his new toy.

Alaric shook his head and sighed. "Please, try not to blow up the whole of The Divide over again, it's been through so much already." He cautioned, the knight simply laughing richly.

So they advanced as before, steadily, evenly, watching for any possible signs of attack or potential ambush. The bloodhounds were on point, fanning out ahead of the others as their K9000s sniffed for explosives left along the roadway to deter intruders.

As they advanced, there was the occasional flicker of movement in the distance, making the troops tense up, but nothing came of it. No sudden advance, no howls and cries of angered beasts, nothing.

"We are too many, the beasts scatter." Kruse intoned as they marched. "Deathclaws are powerful creatures, and proud, but they are also wise in their own way. They know better than to attack a force of armed, alert warriors of our caliber. Those tunneling beasts threw themselves down the barrels of our guns without thought for their own lives, deathclaws are not as mindless as that. If they attack, it will be where they have the advantage, or if they are provoked beyond their caution."

"That's comforting." Alaric said dryly, not much fancying the idea of a pack of deadly monsters with armored skin and rending claws laying in ambush with patience and cunning, dumb and brutish was how he preferred his foes.

"Indeed!" Kruse said cheerfully. "It is fine and good that we march into the beasts lair and slay them where they make their foul nest, there is no other way to ensure that they are driven out! I only hope that we can find the spawning ground for these subterranean crawlers that we might put it to fire and sword." He said as he waved a fist.

Alaric chuckled, spirits lifted a bit by his companion's histrionics. "Indeed my friend, we must find their origin point or else we're just treating symptoms, not delivering a cure. The tunnelers are an ecological nightmare waiting to spread, if they get out into the general wasteland and start establishing more dens out there, we'll never be rid of them."

"Hopefully between the hounds and the robots we can root them all out, they don't seem to have spread to any other part of the world but they seem to breed quickly, I wonder if there be something which keeps them here, or makes it difficult for them to spread. One would think that if they breed so quickly they would spread quickly."

Alaric had been thinking of that as well, but he had no answers so he simply shrugged. Geology, radiation levels, food supply, instinct, there were a hundred possible reasons why the anticipated spreading wave of scale and claw hadn't actually happened yet in the centuries since the war, he was simply glad that so far they hadn't gone anywhere, and that this gave them at least a fighting chance to keep them contained.

"It doesn't look like our friends are going to give us any trouble on this road." Alaric noted, finding no sudden assaults of clawed, toothy death springing from cracks in the pavement. The bloodhounds had noted fresh tracks and other signs of deathclaws in the area, but they must have fled. They were powerful adversaries in single combat, but as Kruse had said, they were also smart beasts and prideful, not the kind to throw their lives away charging at a wall of miniguns and power armor on sight.

"Next is the Ashton Silo, that'll be another base of operations and a good place to rest up and recuperate, then it's on into the heart of The Divide. If there's a battle waiting for us in this place, that's where we'll find it." He said resolutely, marching along with the knights to the next bunker along their path, knowing that the most dangerous and chaotic segment of their journey was laying just ahead of them.

XXXXX

The Ashton silo was much as Alaric remembered it, a crumbling ruin of a silo with great deep hole in the bottom of it leading to darker depths and tunnels. Still, it was partly intact and would at least offer shelter from the howling winds and random ambushes.

"These Tunneler beasts are going to present a major problem for habitation in the region." Kruse remarked, looking down the central shaft of the silo to the opening of the tunnel at its base, which was currently being guarded by several knights while a few troopers laid mines.

Alaric nodded. "Yes, thankfully it seems they cannot dig through steel reinforced concreate, so the insides of these bunkers and silos are mostly safe so long as there are no breaches. But anywhere else…" He sighed, shaking his head. "How are the wounded?"

"Well enough." The Knight Commander replied, looking away from the darkened warren leading off into the depths. "Our armor is stout and our weapons powerful, we fared well against the beast. But these little monsters are clever, found gaps in the armor's seals. Several knights are out of action for this campaign."

Alaric nodded. "At least nobody's died yet. But multiple brotherhood knights wounded in a fight that lasted barely a minute. It does not bode well for the future of this expedition. This is all…" He shrugged uncomfortably. "It's too easy. When I was here before I had to fight tooth and nail for every step, now apart from one watch outpost and a tunneler den we haven't encountered anything. There should have been some deathclaws at least."

"Perhaps they moved on to better hunting grounds?" Kruse suggested. "This place hardly seems like a good environment for any hunter to live for long, the environment would drive off any worthwhile prey. Mayhap your prior assault was enough to convince the remaining beasts to be quit of this place?"

Alaric tapped his gauntlet on the metal thigh of his armor. "Maybe, maybe. I just feel like the Sword of Damocles is hanging over my head and waiting to fall. Bah, in any case we're heading into the heart of The Divide tomorrow, if we don't run into anything terrible there then I suppose they really have gone. I just can't imagine that this place would become anything remotely close to safe anytime soon."

"Indeed." The knight agreed. "Still, worth it to possess the power here, and to have a fortress on the border with the NCR. This terrain will make for an excellent defensive position once we get it under our control."

Alaric had to agree with him. "Yes, I just hope we can secure it without having to spill too much blood. I can't help but feel we're stretched too thin, too many deployments too fast."

The knight shrugged. "You worry too much, the Brotherhood can handle mere beasts and savage men, and you have a fine army."

"One that's still coming together." He pointed out. "The NCR poking the border is cause enough for concern, but how long will the Legion leave us alone? Months now and not a whisper from the east. It's hardly as if they expended all their forces in the Mojave with one campaign. We turned them back but they're still numerous and have a lot of territory, I fear they could overwhelm us if they really throw their backs into it."

The knight shifted uncomfortably as he considered the possibilities. "True." He eventually conceded. "A superior force being overwhelmed by force of numbers, that is something we all have experience with. I would not wish to see another Helios happen, not to the whole of the Mojave. Still, these weapons, these robots, Big Mountain, soon we shall have a stronger force than the Legion or the NCR ever had here in the Mojave."

Alaric nodded. "Yes, let's just hope that 'soon' comes soon enough. Anyhow, I'm going to get some rest. We're marching right into the heart of The Divide tomorrow, if there's a war to be fought here then we'll find it with the dawn."

"Aye." The knight said, with far too much relish. "That we shall."

XXXXX

The next morning found Chase and squad, plus one mercenary, sitting around a table in the inn's eating area, having breakfast. The others were all drinking some black acrid smelling drink they called 'coffee' which Chase still refused to trust, and eating various bits of meat and bread that was available in this little town, a map spread out before them in a cleared space between the bacon plate and water pitcher.

"Okay, so let's go over what we know." Chase declared, blinking sleep from his eyes. "Our prisoner told us that their main camp is located here." He marked the location with a salt shaker. "And if we move quickly we should be able to recon the site ourselves and then deal with this problem before it gets worse."

Diana leaned in, scrutinizing the map. "And how exactly are you planning to 'deal' with an entire bandit camp exactly? They likely outnumber us by at least three to one, probably more."

Chase looked up at her, giving her a small ghost of a smile. "We won't have to deal with it directly, just recon the target and report to Mojave command. Once we inform them of the situation and the state of the target…"

"They'll crush that camp like a radroach getting hit by a sledgehammer." Five Card finished, making a swinging motion with his hand.

"Quite." Chase finished. "Of course we'll need to assess the target before we know if that approach will work, extract any prisoners they might have taken and make sure there are enough bandits there that the decisive strike will suitably depopulate them, I don't want to see them springing up anywhere else."

Diana shrugged. "Yeah, sure thing I guess. I just hope whatever you've got planned doesn't fizzle out or we're going to be in a tight fix with a lot of very angry raiders.

Chase smiled again, slowly revealing his sharp teeth. "Believe me, Diana. They won't know what hit them." He took a certain savage pleasure in seeing her put slightly off balance, for once.

They finished their breakfast and headed out not long afterward, the early morning was a good time to move before the heat of the day set in, and it was best to reach their destination before too much time passed. For all they knew, the sudden loss of at least two patrols might cause the bandits to get cold feet and relocate to a new camp, which would mean they'd have to start all over again.

"Quite a merry little band you've managed to put together." Diana observed from just behind him, the mercenary walking forward to match pace with him. When he didn't respond she kept on talking. "I'm surprised to see you leading anything. Don't get me wrong, you seem to be a fine fighter, but you're not the best at communication."

He glanced over at her coolly. "No, I only say what's needed. I don't chatter much but that hasn't been a problem."

She raised a brow. "Just surprised that you'd end up being a squad leader, you're not exactly charismatic, despite…" She cut herself off and looked away.

"Despite what?" He asked, oblivious.

"Never mind." She growled.

Chase shrugged. "Whatever you say, it seems to be working well so far. There are more ways to lead than talking a lot, sometimes you need to know how to listen and understand people. That's something you might want to work on."

"What did you say?" Diana asked, voice cold.

"Royce, what's the distance to the target? I want to get there before noon." He asked, quickly changing the subject.

XXXXX  
Morning creeped over The Divide, casting the broken land in a patchwork of shadows and spots of light seeping through crumbling buildings and torn billboards. Alaric took a final whiff of the dusty air before sealing his helmet and hefting his minigun, the knights around him preparing themselves in their own way.

"Shall we go see what there is to see?" Kruse asked, raising his laser rifle, the morning sun glinting off his armor's helmet.

Alaric nodded. "No point wasting time. I detest the calm before the storm."

Kruse chuckled. "Aye, let's go into the maelstrom then."

As they began to walk, Alaric looked up to the heavens, the sun obscured by the blowing sand of the eternal dust storm, it put him in mind of a great inferno, whipping up above them. Maelstrom was a good name for it. He shook his head a little, studying the broken buildings, his brow furrowed in concentration. He tried to remember something, anything, of this place before. Had he truly lived here? Had he truly built this place and then destroyed it by accident? Was he walking through a hell of his own creation? But he could remember nothing. Perhaps there was a lesson there, to accidently create hell on earth with the best of intentions.

If he really had nurtured this place, let it grow, and then burned it all through a simple accident, maybe it was a lesson, to avoid committing the same act on a grander scale. After all, everything he was doing had the capacity to burn the world anew. Great armies, ancient technology, and now nuclear fire. There was a kind of poetry here, justice even, in him walking through the great wound in the tortured earth he had created by his own carelessness, a place scoured so clean that even the memory of it was gone from his mind, the wind howling and slipping through every broken wall and shattered window, like whispers of the damned. That was a powerful image, Ulysses would have approved.

Ulysses. So many memories to go with that name. The man who sought the power to burn the world again, to unmake what had grown in the wasted world. He had raged against the man, against his ideas and his plan, but was he really so different? Did a warlord have the right to pass judgement on a fanatic? He shook himself from the reverie with a little effort, sighing into his helmet as he hefted the minigun again, sweeping the area before him for potential hostiles. The city before them was eerily quiet, with only the howling wind for company.

"Have any of the other units reported contact?" Alaric asked, turning to Kruse.

The knight shook his head. "No, nothing. No distant glimpses, no signs of recent habitation. Our path is empty."

Alaric frowned. They had passed out of the silo and over the top of the Sunstone Tower roof. Before them lay a stretch of twisted city and road, and then a dark and deep cave, where he had encountered a number of tunnelers. This place was too quiet, The Divide was chaos and fire, and now… nothing. One paltry outpost to bar their passage, why not anything more than that? Had the Marked Men left? Had he really killed so many on his previous voyage? In any case, no mutant monsters or flayed soldiers rose to attack them before they reached the black pit where he had fought so many of the swarming devils.

"They'll be on us thick as fleas once we get in there, ready yourselves." Alaric warned the troops. The Bloodhound formation took point, raising their cyberdog guns, the sniffing sensors twitching as the formation advanced down into the deep dark.

Helmet mounted lights swept through the darkness of the cave, gravel and rock crunching beneath armored boots as the procession of clanking knights entered the cavern. Alaric's nerves slowly wound tighter and tighter, the barrels of his minigun sweeping left and right as augmented reality targeting displays swept over his vision at a frantic pace, finding no targets. This was wrong, something should be trying to kill them at this point. This was all too easy.

"Found something." Came a voice over the radio, making him jump. No fear, no screams, curiosity.

"Report." Kruse ordered, turning.

"Bodies sir, tunnelers. Lots of them." The knight reported, waving them over. Cautiously, Alaric and Kruse approached the knight and the pile of corpses. Tunnelers indeed, what looked like dozens of them, rotting in the open in a great heap amongst broken eggs.

"What have we here?" Kruse muttered, grabbing a decaying body and lifting it with one hand. "Gunshot wounds." He remarked, seeing the holes blasted into the beast that took its life. "This was an organized slaughter, they killed the beasts, broke their eggs, piled the bodies."

"The question remains as to who 'they' are." Alaric muttered.

"Marked Men are the most likely prospect. Perhaps capitalizing on the havoc you created when you passed through? Doing a little housecleaning in their domain?"

He shrugged, shoulder armor clanking. "Perhaps." He muttered. "It does make sense that they would not wish to leave so many dangerous creatures alive nearby, but they don't seem to have done this before. Ward them off with traps and stay safe in high buildings yes, but this. This speaks of organization I did not know they possessed."

Kruse's helmet turned towards him. "They are soldiers are they not? Debased, twisted soldiers but still, perhaps something of their training, their nature remains? They are united after all."

"By hatred and pain." Alaric reasoned. "And their desire to spread their pain to outsiders. They're more of a mob than an army, this speaks of organization, direction, will. They had no true leaders before from what I could see, a few powerful warriors but they mostly just followed mob mentality, no hierarchy or chain of command, no visible culture beyond the idols and icons they wore and wielded. Perhaps some leader has risen to unite them?"

The Knight Commander grunted. "If so then it is good that we are here now, to stamp them out before they could pose a threat. Perhaps we are in good fortune, and they have expended their strength fighting these beasts, prevented them from spreading."

"Well we've been lucky so far. Though I expect karma will come to bite us sooner or later." Alaric said with a sigh, rising over the pile of corpses. "I doubt they've exterminated them all, but they seem to have inflicted great losses on the beasts. It doesn't look like anything has been living here for a while, and this was one of their biggest nests when I first came through here."

"Hope for the best, bring a big gun just in case." Kruse said, standing and hefting his laser rifle, automatic rocket launcher stowed over his back beside his super sledge.

"Well spoken." Alaric chuckled, raising his weapon and advancing again towards the distant light. "Now, the next clearing really is the last stretch, if we don't find anything there then perhaps you're right, and there really isn't any"

At that moment Alaric's head snapped back as a .50 caliber slug glanced off the top of his helmet.

"Contact! Cave mouth!" Someone shouted, Alaric's head ringing too loud for him to be entirely sure who. He blinked, the combat cybernetics in his brain and his Phoenix healing implant quickly restoring his senses. There were dim figures at the mouth of the cavern ahead of them, up on a ledge, having fortified the position with sandbags and rubble, and were opening fire on his position, the flashing strobes of gunfire brighter than normal in the murky darkness of the cave.

"Burn!" A familiar voice shouted, the whooping scream of the RDG-13 firing off a rapid salvo of rockets, the staccato explosions sending bits of masonry and sandbags flying in all directions, along with parts of the Marked Men manning the ambush.

"We must push forward! Escape this killzone!" Kruse called, getting ready to charge before Alaric held out a hand to stop him, warned by a warbling burst of code-noise from ED-E.

"Satchel charges! It's a minefield! Nobody advance!" Alaric warned, seeing the glowing packages as ED-E highlighted them on his hud, his helmet's systems tapping into the Eyebot's sensors. "Eddie! Clear those mines, everyone else suppressive fire!" He ordered, letting out a burst from his minigun, the rate of fire so high it was more like the sound of a sheet tearing than gunfire, a constant scream of fire from the rotary barrels.

ED-E warbled as it went to work, hovering out over the minefield and blasting the charges with its laser weapon, detonating them safely as the robot worked to clear a path forward, ducking and bobbing this way and that to present a hard target. Alaric gritted his teeth, there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, though their armor made them almost invincible even in the open like this, almost and totally were rather far apart, one knight going down as a lucky shot found a seam in his armor.

Mashing the firing stud on the Vindicator, Alaric began to advance behind the Eyebot, keeping the enemy suppressed as best he could as the ammo counter for the large pack on his back dropped in a constant cascade of whirring numbers going by far too fast to count. Something between a grimace and a smile played over his face behind the helmet, the constant deafening roar of gunfire, the sight of the Marked Men coming apart under the withering cascade of lead, the irregular booms of satchel charges being set off to clear the path forward. This was good. He felt at home.

With a final boneshaking bang that sent rock fragments clattering off his armor, the minefield was cleared. "Sally forth! Charge!" He heard Kruse shout as the knights roared battlecries as they began to run forwards, their voices rendered bass and inhuman by the roar of external speakers. Alaric was charging forward, sweeping the steaming barrels of the big gun over targets as they presented themselves, some part of his mind registering that he had gone from shooting Marked Men in the front to shooting them in the back, the Vindicator chopping off limbs and sawing torsos in half.

As suddenly as the chaotic firefight had begun, it was over, the target indicator on his HUD coming back clean, nothing but torn corpses laying upon the cave floor now. "Clear?" He asked, minigun jerking this way and that like a radar controlled turret seeking a target.

"Clear!" Someone shouted, joined by more voices.

Knight Commander Kruse slotted a new canister into his rocket launcher, before replacing the power cell in his laser rifle. "Rearm and push! I doubt that was all they had to offer, do not allow them to regroup!"

The sound of innumerable boots slapping on rock signaled the army troopers moving up behind them, ready to shore up their advance, Alaric turning to Kruse as he checked the ammo on his minigun, still two thirds of a pack to go. "Looks like we're the spearhead." He remarked, gearing up for the charge.

The knight's helm nodded. "Aye." Kruse said with relish. "Once more unto the breach!" He called. Speaker grills let out static-tinged war cries as they charged out of the cave mouth like an avalanche of gleaming armor, as three dozen valiant knights charged.

Into a horde of hundreds.

=== Author's Note ===

Well it's good to be back! Sorry for keeping you all waiting for so long, had a very weird stretch with no creative motivation or inspiration whatsoever. Thankfully the hype for Fallout 4 has reignited my passion for the Fallout world, and for this story.

So here's hoping I can keep you all entertained with more of this little fic for some time now, provided I don't get completely absorbed into the new game when it arrives.


	25. In the Valley of Darkness

"So we're sure that this is their main base?" Chase asked, glancing sideways at Royce.

"If the intel is accurate, yeah, this should be their primary staging ground. They shouldn't have any other camps. At least not this band anyhow." The sniper said without taking his eyes away from the scope.

Chase grimaced, bringing the binoculars back up to his eyes, looking down at the camp below them. The team was perched up on a ridgeline looking down at the raider settlement nestled between the rocks and hills, hiding it from distant sight. It was a decent setup, though it surrendered the high ground to a potential attacker, and it seemed the raiders were either too sloppy or too afraid of discovery to post patrols or sentries.

It was a fairly sizable camp, with a large round tent at the center and numerous smaller tents and shanties, raiders lazing about and enjoying their spoils in their presumed safety.

"So what's our plan? Call in your Army and watch the fireworks?" Diana asked, checking the camp through her Bozar's scope as they lay on the ridge.

Chase frowned again, shaking his head. "No, I don't think so. We have to handle this problem very… delicately. Subtle enough to not seem like we lost control in the first place. But final enough that no raiders try this again anytime soon."

Tony nodded his agreement. "We also need to get in there and retrieve whatever intelligence they might have down there. If we can find info on who put them up to this, or how they were getting the shipping schedules to attack those caravans, then it would go a long way to preventing further bloodshed. Raiders are like weeds, cut them down and they grow up somewhere else. If we want this problem truly resolved we need to tear it up by the roots, that means finding who's supporting them and making sure that they… learn the consequences of their actions."

The Stalker considered it, before he nodded, looking back through the binoculars. "Besides, a full scale assault is too risky. I'm seeing a few prisoners down there, probably for ransom or slaves for the raiders themselves. We need to get them out before we level this place."

Diana raised one brow skeptically. "Level this place? Seems rather dramatic. I'm good, and your team is the best the Mojave can send. But do you really think that the six of us can take down at least fifty or so raiders?"

Chase lowered the binoculars, turning slowly to face her. He let a slow smile creep over his face, showing teeth that were almost fangs. "We can level the place. Just trust me." He said in a very dangerous whisper. "We wait for nightfall. Everyone get some rest, this is going to be interesting."

XXXXX

Alaric mashed the firing stud on his minigun, gritting his teeth as the Vindicator roared and spat a hail of lead into the great horde of enemies ahead of him. There were so many, hundreds, though he wasn't sure exactly how many, just that everywhere he looked seemed to be a sea of tattered uniforms and raw red flesh. Open mouths with broken teeth screamed at him as melee troops charged and ranged fighters laid down barrages of fire. Despite public perceptions of power armor users being able to walk imperviously through hails of gunfire, being inside a suit while under this kind of constant assault was like sitting inside a bell while it was constantly struck from all sides. The impacts were dulled but you still felt them, muted punches expending their energy as rounds fragmented on strong titanium and ceramic armor.

But the energy still mattered, and under the weight of so many shots the knights were staggering, it was as if they were being sand blasted by the volume of firepower being hurled indiscriminately at them, so many stray rounds kicking up dirt from the dusty ground that it was like the surface of a lake during a rainstorm.

Muscles and armor groaning in protest, Alaric advanced, seeking the refuge of cover behind a fallen pile of masonry that may once have been an office building, unable to hear himself think over the endless ringing of bullets pounding on the surface of his armor, so loud it was almost shocking when it suddenly abated as he reached cover.

Alaric turned, minigun barrels smoking as he looked at the knights behind him. Kruse had been right behind him, staggering and falling against the brick wall, his armor pockmarked and dented all over, other knights following behind him. A few hulking bodies lay prone in the parched dust, armor shattered or vital points pierced. Next he turned his gaze back to the cave mouth they had just escaped from, and where the majority of his army troopers, and thus the bulk of his force, were taking refuge. It seemed that the enemy was focusing their full fury upon himself and the obvious threat, and had not yet investigated the cavern or encountered the troops sheltering within. Good, good, that gave them something of a trump card at least.

Kruse hauled himself over, coughing behind his helmet. "Ack! Against such numbers, valor seems helpless, lord. They will cut us down with sheer numbers before we can close the charge!"

Alaric nodded, grunting as he rose up, bracing himself against the broken wall as he opened fire once again, pouring a long burst into an onrushing pack of melee fighters, waving chipped blades and arc casters. He took a quiet satisfaction in watching them being chopped apart by his screaming weapon. When the Vindicator spoke, squads died.

"True my friend, so let us hold out, we must count in our endurance. We shall bleed them out, let them exhaust themselves upon us and when they grow impatient and come to root us out, then we will counterattack with the rest of the army. We need to draw them in, my friend."

Kruse laughed once behind his helmet, hauling his tortured body back to its feet and checking the load on his laser. "Aye lord." He turned to the other knights, rising tall upon the mound of masonry before Alaric could stop him. "Knights! Rally to me! Each of you is worth a dozen of this pitiful rabble! Show them the strength of our resolve and the might of our arms!" The Knight Commander shouted, brandishing his super sledge in one hand as he fired from the hip with the other, sending ruby beams carving down into the onrushing rabble.

All around them, the Marked Men were swarming like ants, seeking new firing lanes and approaches to root them out of their hiding place. Alaric's ammo counter ran lower and lower as he chopped through enemies, he had lost count of how many had perished under the withering hail the Vindicator put out. All around him miniguns blazed, lasers, plasma and LAERs barked, gauss rifles fired with their high pitched whine and metallic clash.

As he gunned down another squad of enemy warriors, Alaric began to wonder again exactly what was going on here. Why had they all assembled here? What had motivated them to join forces? And more specifically, who was leading them now. This all spoke of organization and planning, there was a greater strategy at work behind the movements of the enemy army. For an army this was, where once had only been a rabble of pain-crazed survivors. Could he really count on them to grow impatient and throw themselves into a headlong charge like the Marked Men he was used to fighting? Or was the mind directing this force willing to be patient? Was he sitting himself in a trap?

"Kruse, I don't like this." He grunted, cursing quietly as his minigun finally ran out of ammo, having torn through a small army's worth of mad ghouls. He dropped the ammo pack to the ground and set the weapon down, drawing his prototype laser rifle, firing cyan blasts into whatever target that presented itself, the shots blowing off limbs and hollowing out torsos.

"Neither do I lord, they seem willing to grind us down here." The knight Commander grunted, gunning down an enemy before he could fire the arc caster he carried.

"We may need to signal the counterattack sooner than later, I'd call for fire support but I'd rather not level the facility we're here to take."

"Or hit a buried nuke and spread radiation over the entire region." Kruse responded.

"That would be bad." Alaric agreed, keying his radio. "Colonel, we're going to need that backup sooner rather than later, send in the roboscorpions as a first wave to shake them up, then get your men into those low buildings, stick to cover or you'll be chopped to pieces. We'll try to draw as much of their fire as we can to give you time!"

The infantry commander acknowledged his order as he slotted a new electron charge pack into his laser rife, blasting off another head as the enemy made their push again. "Kruse, how's it looking over there? The infantry are going to need a distraction if they're going to get to an effective fighting position without being chopped apart."

Kruse looked up over the rim of the broken building, then looked back to Alaric. Then he looked back over the rim again as though doing a double take.

"Kruse? What is it?" He asked.

Kruse turned back towards him. "Deathclaws sir. It seems they've domesticated them." He said in a perfectly level, calm voice.

"Well." Alaric said, trying to find something to say that fully expressed the situation. "Shit."

As it turned out, 'domesticated' was a little too strong a word. As Alaric peeked over the lip of broken masonry, he saw several large cages, scrap metal sides shaking as the howling beasts within were enraged by the cacophony of the battle around them. One by one the cages were open, and the beasts being driven towards them by Marked Men with arc casters, cajoling the Deathclaws forwards with biting arcs of electricity.

Alaric sneered behind his helmet, it was a rather bad situation. They couldn't leave cover or they would be cut down by the sheer volume of firepower being hurled at them. But they couldn't stick still or the Deathclaws would find them easy pickings in close quarters.

"Prepare for close combat!" Kruse bellowed through his helmet, readying his hammer and taking potshots with a laser pistol. Alaric grunted as he followed suit, igniting his Protonic Inversal Axe and drawing a PPK-12 gauss pistol, other knights drawing big bore pistols and rippers as they listened to the howl of the enraged Deathclaws.

Alaric shook his head a little, he couldn't just sit here, waiting for the beasts to hit them. "Kruse, you have a marksman?"

The Commander nodded at once. "Night Preston, ready your rifle."

Preston, a knight in T-45 power armor, unslung an M28 gauss rifle, the design originally used by the Chinese and then copied by the American forces during the conflicts on the eve of the Great War. "Call the target sir." He said in a calm voice despite the chaos all about.

"The enemy is using handlers to corral the Deathclaws, start dropping the ones with the arc casters! If we're lucky the beasts will turn on them."

The knight, to his credit, didn't waste any time with needless gestures, just a polite 'Sir.' Before he was crawling up the broken pile of bricks and concrete, laying his armored bulk flat upon the top of the mound to present as small a target as possible. The gauss rifle was a sniper's weapon of the highest order, capable of landing killshots at far greater ranges than were an issue here, and a moment later there issued the distinctive report of a gauss rifle, a combination of supersonic crack and something like two blocks of metal slamming together.

The unfortunate animal handler's bits had barely finished spraying all over the terrain as Preston ejected the spent microfusion cell and busied himself with loading the next one, eyes already seeking his next target as his hands performed the practiced action without him having to think about it.

"The beasts are charging!" A knight called, bringing Alaric out of his momentary distraction, arm snapping up with the speed and precision of a radar-guided gun, blasting four 2mm hypersonic slugs into the first Deathclaw, shattering the creature's skull and sending it sliding across the ground from its retained momentum.

He continued firing as fast as he could, the few remaining miniguns spinning, barrels smoking hot as they ejected a small mountain of spent casings and feed linkages, their little hill of brick and stone surrounded by a field of dead men and severed limbs, the beasts charging towards them. Deathclaws were brave creatures and singularly focused, but in the end they were animals, untrained, savage creatures who despite being unto mythical monsters in the wastes, just wanted to eat and live another day, these were not well trained war hounds but a rabble of creatures coerced into the charge through pain.

And in those conditions, even a Deathclaw might have second thoughts. To punctuate the thought, another beastmaster vaporized into a red mist as a 5mm tungsten slug ripped through his chest at multiple times the speed of sound, the Deathclaw he had been antagonizing into a mad frenzy charging through the sudden gap in the wall of electrified prongs to begin tearing into the Marked Men line, blood sprays and severed limbs flying through the air as Kruse let out a bark of derisive laughter.

But then, the beasts were upon them, clambering over the bricks to get at them, their beady animal eyes frenzied and thick hide bearing fresh scars from their confinement, whipped and starved like some old-world arena bull. Alaric shifted his stance, raising his axe to detach a Deathclaw's hand at the wrist as it swiped at him, simultaneously emptying the last of his gauss pistol's magazine into the face of a creature about to disembowel Knight Preston as he scrambled to his feet from his prone firing position, ejecting the spent magazine as he twisted and engaged the wounded Deathclaw again, driving a power-assisted kick into its gut and exploiting its new weak side to decapitate it with a precise swipe of his glowing axe.

Again he had cause to bless the implants in his brain which allowed him to maintain multiple trains of action and thought simultaneously, essentially giving his full attention to the rigors of personal combat as well as listen to his radio without it really distracting him, the advanced sensors behind his false eyes painting the battlefield in a computer's precision, measuring ranges and distanced down to the millimeter and calculating the speed of everything in his sight cone.

"Sir we have begun the push." Came the voice of the Army Colonel over his radio set. "We're hitting them with the first wave of Roboscorpions right now and the enemy line has been disrupted by those rabid Deathclaws, just hold out a little longer, the Army is on the field!"

"Thank you Colonel." Alaric said in a hasty, clipped voice as he ducked under a swiping claw and drove his axe up into the Deathclaw's belly, the energy blade finding little resistance in scaly flesh, no matter how tough. The knights closed ranks, a shrinking ring of gleaming power armor as the Deathclaws circled, looking for a weakness in their defenses, a waver in their line as the tide of the battle turned slowly, grinding on around them as they were locked, oblivious, in mortal combat.

A gasping cry from behind him signaled another knight's fall, though whether wounded or dead he could not tell and had no time to discern, the bloody-clawed monster that felled the warrior being shredded by a few rapid pulses of a scatter laser , going down in a smoldering heap.

Alaric's mind was submersed in the odd, placid calmness that seemed to overtake him in battles of late. He wondered if it was all his experiences numbing him to the carnage around him, the circuitry in his brain guiding his thoughts along more logical, dispassionate paths, or perhaps simply his artificial heart regulating his body's systems to the point where the biological compulsions of panic and anxiety simply didn't seem to take hold of him anymore. In any case, he was glad of it, for without that state of mind, of being the eye of the hurricane, he couldn't possibly fight as well as he did.

He stepped forward, striding over the fallen knight to meet the Deathclaws personally, shifting his axe's position a few inches to prepare for probably counterattack. Gauss pistol up, sweep left. Deathclaw advancing, preparing to strike with right claw. Put three slugs through the inside of its right elbow, arm disabled, attack neutralized. No time for the killshot, new target on the right, readying to strike, indecisive, weak stance. Remove nearest limb from the forearm down and follow with shoulder tackle, the beast was sent sprawling to its back. Another target front, making for full charge. Too much momentum to engage in melee, loss of balance unacceptable, six shots center mass, target neutralized. Crippled Deathclaw on left? Eliminated, allied kill, head vaporized with plasma rifle. Prone target to the right has regained footing blow out right knee with two shots and decapitate with axe. Next target advancing, only one shot remaining, insufficient for conventional kill. Probability of eye shot 76%, acceptable risk.

Alaric pulled the trigger, sending the last slug in his twelve shot magazine bursting through the Deathclaw's eye, splattering its brain, the beast falling as he ejected the spent magazine, the whole frantic combat only lasting five seconds or so. As he slammed a new magazine home, he took a brief moment to assess the wider situation, looking behind him as he let straw shots glance off his armored bulk like a spring rain. The Roboscorpions had done their job and made the first attack, taking the brunt of the initial enemy resistance on their armored hulls as they scurried over the uneven terrain, blasting with their energy weapons and cutting through ankles and legs with their mechanical pincers. After them he saw the signature uniform coats of Army Troopers amidst the rubble, advancing in the wake of the robotic charge and capitalizing on the confusion in the enemy ranks. Odd, he didn't remember Marked Men having such a preference for laser weapons, but perhaps they had found another untouched armory since he'd been through here, laser rifles were common enough in prewar military bunkers.

His eyes were quickly drawn by a loud roaring noise, the biggest of the cages being torn open from the inside as a great brute of a Deathclaw came charging out, its scales almost black and its horns great and curved. The Marked Men tried to restrain the great Alpha but it either didn't feel their weapons or simply didn't care, tearing into them with ferocity and malice, shredding its attendant guards before howling to the heavens. The battle had devolved into a brawl between two fractured armies with the Deathclaws now abandoning all pretense of direction and now little more than a terrifyingly dangerous random element careening around the battlefield.

"Sir, that Alpha is heading right for the Army lines." Knight Preston grunted, nursing a wounded arm, blood leaking from great gashes in his power armor.

"Heavy weapons teams!" Alaric called into the radio, knowing that even the 7.62 rounds would be like flicking peas at something that old and enraged past the point of feeling pain.

"They won't get there in time!" Kruse barked. "I'll handle it!"

"Handle it? Kruse? Kruse!" Alaric shouted, catching a glimpse of a familiar figure in T-51b power armor charging across open terrain, super sledge in hand, before he was lost amidst the press of bodies and the howl of beasts.

Kruse's armored boots pounded the gravel and dirt, kicking it up in a spray behind him as he charged, pushing his armor and his muscles to the limit as he rushed across open ground towards the big Alpha Deathclaw. It was a terrible monster to behold, scales so dark to be almost black, hulking over its lesser kin, a champion among monsters, the Army Troopers would have no chance against such a monster. Thankfully the tide of the battle had shifted somewhat, the army of tortured Ghouls having more to worry about than one armored figure, directing their attention to the more pressing threats of rampaging Deathclaws and attacking soldiers.

But the lesser monsters were barring his way to the Alpha, perhaps acting as some sort of honor guard for the vile champion, three lesser beasts moving to block his path. With a fluid motion he drew his laser pistol in his left hand, pumping controlled shots into the nearest of the creatures, causing it to snarl as its thick hide blackened and hissed under the shots, though he soon had to return the pistol to its holster and take up his hammer with both hands, charging forward to meet the monster's bull rush, bringing his hammer down in a heavy overhand sweep.

The head of the hammer only clipped the monster as it was forced to dodge, ruining its charge, the heavy discharge of the kinetic head spinning it a bit in place and making the beast howl in pain. No time to engage it though as another closed to his side, the knight grimacing behind his helm as he swung hard. "Avaunt! Foul beast!" He cried, if only to give himself courage, as he brought the hammer around to slam into the creature's shoulder, the kinetic impact head making a loud crack as it discharged energy in kinetic force, sending the unprepared creature sliding to the side with a surprised hiss. He lost no time, swinging the hammer in wide arcs, the beasts hissing and pulling back as they learned the pain the humming hammer could dish out, beginning to circle him more cautiously.

The Knight grinned behind his helmet, laughing softly to himself. "So you do know fear." He chuckled darkly, thinking fast. Three Deathclaws in close combat was an almost impossible fight under these circumstances, and while he was a brave and dedicated warrior he was no fool. They would close and cut him apart, there was no time to hold a defensive, the only option was to attack, teach them fear and pain.

"I will suffer you no more!" He bellowed, war cry rendered a booming inhuman echo by his helmet speakers as he charged the nearest monster, turning his headlamp up to maximum in the small hope of blinding it as he pushed forward, swinging from the shoulder as if he was chopping wood. The creature attempted to block, but the force of his swing pushed through the defense, slamming into the beasts head and sending it to the ground like he was driving home a nail. Instinct told him to expect the attack from behind, turning as he heard the loud scraping squeal of claws rending at his power armor, scraping across the heavy shield casing of his reactor. He jerked the weapon back, stabbing at where he expected the Deathclaw to be with the end of his hammer's haft, which was sharpened into a spike.

Rewarded with a cry of pain, he wrenched the weapon sideways, tearing the wound open in a spray of blood, building momentum with the swing to connect with the creature's head. As the beast behind him started to rise, the third one circling and snarling as its more aggressive brothers fought, Kruse pressed the attack, slamming the front of his hammer's head into the beasts gut, before turning the head vertically and dragging it up to slam into the underside of the beast's jaw, snapping its head up vertically and breaking its jawbone. But again the other attacked from behind and he turned to block, claws scraping over his armor and possible tearing it, he had no time to check, as he brought the hammer up again.

He raised it to block a strike that might have taken his head, ducking as the claws took just long enough to slice through the metal shaft of his hammer, cutting the haft in two and sending him off balance for a moment, but he rallied as quick as he could to slam the now one-handed hammer into its face, stabbing backwards with the spike that had been the other half to ward off the other beast, threatening to stab an eye out.

"It would be a heroic end, battling a pack of such beasts." He taunted aloud. "But I shall strike thee down, and move on to your champion!" He stuck again, dazing the Deathclaw before him. "Or in more common language." He continued, grunting with exertion as he shattered the beast's skull. "Get the hell out of my way!" He blocked the strike of the third beast with the hammer's head, the weapon starting to smoke and spit sparks as the claws cut into its internal mechanisms. He reversed his grip on the metal spike, driving it through a gap in the second Deathclaw's ribcage, making the creature spit blood before he kicked it, driving the metal spike out through its back, one more spin among the others sprouting there. "Begone!" He cursed the final one, hitting it with the damaged head, bits and pieces of his ancient weapon breaking off as he struck, the kinetic impactor tearing itself up with unstable energy bursts. The Deathclaw jumped back to avoid a strike, pulling back and preparing to charge. Warned by a high pitched whine in the hammer's head, Kruse drew it back and hurled it end over end, colliding with the beast's face and finally detonating as its fusion power plant breached catastrophically, blasting most of the Deathclaw's head away in the process.

The knight turned from the ruined bodies of his foes, barely registering the bite of pain in his body, one of their claws must have made it through, but he keyed up a few stimpacks and some Med-X to hold him together, just a little longer, he had a job to do. The great Alpha had been watching him, but to his dismay it turned aside and continued towards the soldiers, their frantic weapons fire glancing off its hide like insect bites. He had to do something, so in the lack of any real plan he fell back on what he was best at. Bravado, and audacity.

"Turn and face me foul creature!" He bellowed, drawing his laser pistol and Ripper, expending the last of the weapon's power cell into the great beast's back. "I, Knight Commander Kruse challenge you to single combat! Face me if you have the courage!"

Perhaps it was the stings of the laser blasts leaving smoldering pockmarks up its back, or something in the defiant way he spoke, but the Alpha turned towards him again, rage burning in its animal eyes. "Now I've pissed it off." He muttered to himself, holstering his pistol. The Alpha roared and started towards him, bellowing an animalistic challenge and building up speed. Without any better idea, and no time to think, Kruse let instinct take over, revving the Ripper up to full power as he started to run towards it as well, bellowing a challenge back in his own way.

"Have at thee!" He shouted at the top of his voice as they came crashing together at the epicenter of the raging battle.

The beast was larger than he was, even in his armor, but the ceramic and titanium of Kruse's T-51 was made of sterner stuff. The Alpha's scales were as tough as Kevlar and ceramic plate, but when titanium met flesh at a full charge, flesh yielded. The impact shook the knight to his bones. The Deathclaw had slashed at him and the claws had bitten home, but the sheer momentum of his charge could not be negated so easily and he shunted the full kinetic energy of his reckless charge into the beast's torso, driving it back and forcing it to dig its claws into the tainted earth. The beast growled, Kruse growled back. His charge spent, he tried to step back but the Deathclaw wrapped its arms around him in a bear hug and began to squeeze.

Servos and hydraulics squealed in his ears as he fought, warning lights blinking on his HUD as the hi-flow hydraulics of his suit were straining beyond their safety limits as he tried to push against the immense mass of mutant muscle crushing him like a tin can. "Not. So. Fast!" He gasped through gritted teeth, his hand scrabbling for the ripper strapped to his thigh. He couldn't hear the motor whining into life over the shriek of his tortured armor, but he felt the vibration coming up through the mechanical gauntlet and he stabbed where his instincts guided him. The monster roared in pain and the grip went slack. Kruse pulled the whirling blade from where he'd stabbed it into the monster's armpit and pulled back, bringing up the weapon in a ready guard.

He felt pain within him, unsure where the injury was exactly but his suit had been pierced in the initial clash. Somewhere around his chest or gut most likely, judging by where the blood was flowing out of his armor. How serious the wound was he couldn't say, he couldn't even feel it. The initial clash had ended in a draw it seemed, blood flowing from the wound beneath one of the beast's arms. The two champions began to circle now, reptilian eyes gazing into the scowling visor of the knight's helm. A claw jerked forward and Kruse swatted at it with the ripper, a feint, the beast testing him. Its scales were covered in scars but he had hurt it dearly in an important place, perhaps even crippled it, now they showed each other respect, no blind charges now.

The beast growled, low and menacing, and Kruse answered in kind, his voice low and inhuman through the speaker on his helmet. Then he began to laugh, slowly at first but then stronger, welling up from his core. He wasn't even sure why he was laughing, it just felt like the right thing to do, perhaps it was the adrenaline rush, or some reaction to the pain he wasn't feeling. Sensing some insult in the laughter, the great Alpha growled a challenge and went forward, swiping with its claws again. Kruse blocked, sending it away with torn scales, realizing he must have crippled one arm with that lucky strike, judging by the way the beast was holding it.

Capitalizing on his advantage, he drove forward again, stabbing and cutting with the ripper, his bellowing discordant laughter booming from the tinny speaker. He met the open-palmed swipes with stabs and cuts, a nick here and a cut there, the Alpha growling with anger and impatience. Finally the monster overcommitted and Kruse struck, shifting the weight of his body and twisting his torso to throw the full weight of his armored bulk into the stab. The ripper met the monster's palm and with a squeal of rending flesh, tore through it to punch clear out the back of its hand. The Alpha's roar was deafening, making his helmet ring like a struck bell. Both hands crippled and blind with rage, the alpha dove forward to bite his head off.

Kruse let go of the weapon, the teeth stilling without his hand to press the trigger, and he grabbed the Deathclaw by both horns. The weight of the monster hit him hard and he was going down to the ground, but a twist kept him from landing on his back. Writhing on the rocks and dirt, they struggled, his vision distorted as saliva coated his visor. Maybe it was the injury or the sheer thrill of the moment, but Kruse felt fresh strength surging in his limbs as he clamped his gauntlets on those horns and started to twist, slowly turning the beast's head. The Alpha realized what was happening too late, crippled arms flailing and tail thrashing in the bloody dust. "I. Am. Kruse." He grunted through his damaged helmet. "Knight of the realm." There was fear in the monster's eyes now as he kept twisting, straining as the Alpha's head was twisted to ninety degrees. "Slayer of dragons!" With a final wrench there was a loud crunching noise, and the beast went still. Kruse laughed again, so quiet it couldn't be heard outside his helmet, his tormented armor shutting down, hydraulic fluid and lubricant leaking, mixed with his blood. "I've… always… always wanted to say that." He chuckled, as darkness crept over his vision.

===Author's Note===

First off, I've made this little side project. The TDiC visual guide. A little thing I slapped together using the armor and gear I've used to inspire my descriptions. It's not perfect, but I think it's the best I can do based on combining other people's mods and clothing to represent what I have in mind.

(Write imgur dot com here) /a/nae0A

Okay I really have no excuse for the wait this time. Other than to say that Fallout 4 and Star Wars: The Old Republic are very distracting indeed. But here I am, writing what I feel I'm able. And as always displaying my love of tormenting you all with cliffhangers.

Always happy to hear your reactions and reviews, thanks for sticking with me and my incredibly unreliable update schedule!


	26. Jackpot

Alaric's laser rifle was back in his hands, the prototype weapon spitting blue beams with each careful trigger pull, blasting away Marked Men as he tracked and fired with the rapid precision of a radar guided weapons platform. His X0-1 power armor was scorched and dented from bullets and laser blasts, scratched and scraped by the claws of beasts, but the old Enclave suit held strong as he strode the battlefield. The death of the Alpha Deathclaw seemed to be a pivotal moment, the tide of battle turning in their favor as the remaining Deathclaws seemed broken by the champion's fall, either retreating or continuing to fight but without the deadly pack coordination they had shown before.

A ruby laser blast flashed past his visor and he snapped around, blasting a smoking crater through the metallic armor of the shooter, sneering behind his helmet. He was about to march off but something caught his eye, the laser weapon he'd been shot at. Curious, he tromped over to regard the ghoul that had shot at him. Ghoul… not Marked Man. The flesh was more greyish pink and lacked the bright red that the Marked Men showed. He wore dark painted metal armor of decent quality, and his helmet was styled into the aspect of some fearsome predator it seemed. He kicked it to make sure it was dead before he picked up the ramshackle laser rifle the ghoul had shot at him with. It was longer than a normal AER rifle, with a hand crank and a series of lenses and wires mounted on a long central spine with a solid wooden stock. Wasteland made it seemed, and decently powerful. He slung the odd weapon over his shoulder to inspect later.

"Can anyone see the Knight-Commander?" Came a voice over the radio, one of the Brotherhood knights, sounding frantic. "I saw him go down but I don't have eyes on!"

"Moving." Alaric grunted, bringing his own laser up to bear again as he bull-rushed through the combat zone, tanking a few glancing hits from rifle rounds pinging off his armor's huge neckguard and sturdy chest plating. Popping off a few vaguely aimed suppressive shots, he rushed over to the corpse of the great Alpha beast, kneeling down and rolling it to the side to use the monster's bulk as cover. Kruse was in bad shape, his armor torn with gashes and holes, blood and mechanical fluids leaking and forming into a black-red puddle upon the corrupted soil.

Alaric released the Valence Oscillators from his hip pouch, the little glowing motes of light dancing in geometric patterns around the knight's wounds, emitting healing energies into his torn body. He couldn't check for pulse through his metal gauntlets but the Oscillators pulsed to show there was still life in the knight below him, so he dug into his medical pouch. Alaric inserted the feed tube of a Super Stimpack in through one of the holes in his armor and started it pumping, before he removed the damaged helmet. He shook his head as he saw blood leaking from Kruse's mouth, eyes closed, before he brought the Hydra vial up to another gash in the armor and injected it. The powerful healing compounds and the advanced technology of the floating little orbs struggling to bring life back into the tormented body of the warrior. Knowing there was nothing else he could do, Alaric cupped Kruse's head in one large armored palm, speaking softly. "Come back to us, my knight. Your land still needs you."

With a cough and a twitch, Kruse jerked back to life, blinking blearily at the sudden light. "I was… having the most amazing dream." He began, licking his bloodied lips. "There was a dragon and I… oh." He said, sounding mildly surprised as he glanced over at the lifeless head of the Alpha Deathclaw. "Has the battle been won?"

Alaric chuckled, hanging his head and releasing some of the tension he'd been holding onto. "The tide has turned, the army troopers are breaking through and the knights are on the offensive again, we've got them on the ropes. It's either a rout or complete destruction for them now."

Kruse nodded. "Right, well get me up, I'm not finished yet." He grunted, trying to rise, Alaric pushing him back down.

"No, no Kruse, you're in no condition to fight, look at you." Alaric said, gesturing down to the many gashes and holes punched through the armor, which itself would probably have to be removed in a workshop with all the damage. "You'd pass out the moment you stood up."

"Tis but a scratch." Kruse protested, "I can take them."

It must be the chems, Alaric decided, shaking his head. "What are you going to do, bleed on them? Your armor joints are torn up, your hydraulic fluid has all leaked out, you couldn't even walk in this armor let alone fight. Not to mention the severe internal injuries you've likely suffered. You're going to have to spend weeks in a hospital after this one."

"Just a flesh wound." Kruse said dismissively.

Alaric shook his head as a pair of army medics arrived. "Kruse, be a good knight and don't give these nice men any trouble. I'll give you a special present later okay?" He said, patting the by now quite stoned Knight's shoulder.

"Yaaaaayyy." Kruse droned quietly as the medics looked him over, starting to bandage his many wounds and get him out of his tormented armor. Alaric left him in their capable hands, shouldering his rifle again and going to join the fight.

In the end, the battle lasted about a half hour longer, some Marked Men broke and ran but most stood their ground to the end. Something admirable in that, at least, he supposed. Finally he stepped over the last corpse to behold the interior of the final and greatest of The Divide's missile bunkers, still mostly intact after all the years and torments it had endured. After confirming that Kruse had been medevacked in serious but stable condition, he removed his helmet and breathed deep of the musty air, resting a gauntleted hand on the wall as he looked at the nuclear warheads and decrepit missiles stacked and leaning about the great vault before him. He nodded to himself, reaching out a gauntlet before him as if to grasp something.

"And now I steal fire from the gods." He said quietly, before donning his helmet again and ordering an inventory of the base as soon as mop-up operations were complete.

XXXXX

Chase and his team had laid low upon the ridgeline planning their offensive for the remainder of the day, the sun sinking low in the heavens. The Raiders wouldn't have anything approaching night vision equipment so timing was important here, they had to strike just in the waning moments of sunlight, the very first minutes of darkness would be the most advantageous moment to mount their raid. The Raiders wouldn't have had time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness or put all their lights on, hopefully, giving them an advantage with their armor's night vision systems.

They had also taken the time to observe the comings and goings, note the somewhat slapdash guard rotations and where the captives were being kept. The plan was simple in its concept at least, though likely something would go wrong at some point. One strike team consisting of Five Card, Sawbones and Tony would free the captives and get them to safety before staging a diversionary firefight. Chase and Diana would infiltrate the large tent in the center of the camp and try to snag any intelligence they could before getting out. Royce would stay up on the ridge using his long rifle to open gaps in the defenses and offer support to the strike teams.

Chase screwed a sound suppressor onto his N99 pistol, the others performing similar modifications onto their weapons of choice, Diana was using her 10mm machine pistol for the moment, her big Bozar slung across her back.

"You still haven't told me what's going to happen after we get out of the camp." She said quietly, checking her ammo loads.

Chase smirked. It probably wasn't wise but some part of him savored leaving her in the dark. "I've called command, our solution is standing by as soon as we get those prisoners out of there and do an intel sweep. When the time comes, don't look back, just run." He said, his smile concealed by his helmet.

Diana's body language showed she probably picked up on his amusement, shaking her head. "Is this revenge?"

"Revenge for that?" Chase asked innocently. "I haven't done anything to you." She stared at him with the impassive death's head of her helmet. "At least, not since Gomorrah." He deadpanned.

"And you never will again." She snapped, flicking the safety on her compact SMG off.

"Am I supposed to be bothered by that?" Chase asked, looking over to his sniper. "Royce, should that bother me?"

"I refuse to comment." The sniper sighed.

"Five Card?" He asked.

"Um… yeah, I'd be bothered." The big man admitted after a moment.

Chase shrugged. "Well, personal opinion then."

Diana tweaked her head slightly. "Do you really think it wise to antagonize someone who's going to be watching your back in a firefight?"

The Stalker gave her a long look. "Isn't that what you've been doing since we met again?" He asked plainly.

Diana looked surprised, her helmet's chin dipping a little. "I suppose I have." She said, her voice a little softer. "I suppose it's a bit hypocritical, looks like I'm willing to give it but not take it."

Chase nodded sagely. "It's alright, you took it just fine last time."

Diana froze. "Chase you son of a-"

"Sundown, time to move." He said smoothly, activating his night vision system and sliding out of cover, heading for a path down the rocks, pistol in hand.

The path down into the Raider camp was meant to be difficult to see, so there was no guard up at the entrance. Though the further path down was patrolled, they had timed their movements perfectly and had spent hours memorizing every guard position and cover spot on the way down. Chase watched on guard lazily walk along, moving to a little lean-to guard house set against the rock wall. He waited for the Raider to get out of sight of the rest of the camp, behind the little shack wall.

"Take him." He spoke quietly into his helmet radio, the guard jerking to the side and falling dead. Up on the ridge, Royce worked the bolt of his rifle and shifted to the next target. Raiders were poor guard material, if they weren't stoned or drunk on duty then they were usually twitchy and undisciplined, without proper protocols or standards for reaction in case something went wrong. As such it was fairly easy to infiltrate their base camp, and the blaring music and shouting of their nightly revels covered the coughs of their suppressed weapons. Chase's handgun spat twice and dropped another Raider just as he turned the wrong corner, the Stalker grabbing the body before it hit the ground and quietly dragging it out of sight.

"You sure know what you're doing." Diana muttered, her weapon up as they went along, switched to single shot mode.

"M-SOC training is good." Chase muttered. "And where I came from stealth was essential. Being heard could get you killed."

"Sounds rough." Diana said quietly, sliding forward to knife a sleeping guard and drag him down out of sight.

"Had its ups and downs." He muttered back, before looking around. "Okay, split up, you three get to those prisoners, maintain stealth as long as you can."

Tony nodded. "On it." He said, giving hand signals to the rest of the team to get a move on.

As he watched them slink into the growing darkness, Chase looked back to Diana. "No point waiting." He muttered and started skulking down into the Raider camp proper. He was glad of his helmet's filters as he was sure the place reeked of unwashed bodies, cheap alcohol and filth. Raiders lived hard and died fast, he briefly wondered what depths of human misery one would have to sink to in order to actually chose a life like this. Was it slow steps into depravity and brutality, or was there just some great event where the mind snapped? Neither option changed his mission or made him feel any remorse, but he did wonder.

The Raiders in the main camp were variously tripping on chems, drunk out of their minds or generally just not paying attention. A great big bonfire burned in the middle of camp which surely ruined the night vision of anywhere nearby. The Raiders just seemed to believe that nobody was going to come into their camp and attack them. Though they were all invariably armed so if things went bad, when things went bad, they would likely have a very brutal fight on their hands. Still, he would put his team up against any rabble of wasteland scum regardless of the numbers disparity.

"Looks like the main tent isn't really guarded, I think we can cut in through the back." Diana pointed out, Chase nodding and giving her the hand signal to take point. While he had many frustrations working with her, he had to admit that the mercenary did know what she was doing, she moved with smooth, easy confidence and her weapons were extensions of her arms. While she might have had a conflicting personality and some odd conceptions of social conduct, he at the very least trusted her to hold her own when push came to shove.

They reached the back of the central Raider tent without incident and Diana watched his back as he cut through the sturdy canvas with his knife, opening a hole the two crouched and slipped through. "Let us know the moment you see anything out of the ordinary." He radioed to Royce, the sniper acknowledging. The interior of the tent was mostly one open chamber, a few smaller rooms off to the sides. Moving cautiously, pistol at the ready, Chase slinked through the dim interior, checking on room after the next. One was full of recreational items, drinks and chems and the trophy heads of animals, nothing there. The main chamber had a kind of throne in it. Then they found a room illuminated by the dim green light of an active terminal.

"Cover me." Chase said, going to sit down. He slipped a holotype into the front slot of the terminal, thankfully finding its security to be well within the capabilities of the auto-hack program on the tape to defeat, and after a good thirty seconds of rapid password manipulation he was in.

"What have you got?" Diana asked, machine pistol pointing at the open door.

"Looks like shipping manifests, schedules. You were right they had inside information." Chase muttered, tabbing through reports. "There's some letters here as well, though the person he was talking to was using a codename. But…" He tapped through a few more letters. "It looks like they were put up to this by someone."

"Chase, trouble." Royce radioed. "Looks like a couple Raiders heading for the tent entrance."

Chase nodded idly. "Thanks Royce. Five Card, I need that distraction right now."

"Happy to oblige." The big man chuckled, and a few seconds later there was a loud explosion somewhere outside the tent followed by a torrent of automatic weapons fire from the far side of the camp.

"Here's hoping we don't catch a stray round." Diana said morbidly as Chase continued his exploration, setting the terminal to download all data to his tape while he rifled through physical papers.

"I was hoping there would be more here, some kind of ledger of expenses or something." He said sadly.

"Maybe the Raiders don't keep that good of records?" Diana suggested.

He shrugged, pulling his tape out. "Or the raider boss keeps it on his person rather than laying around. In any case we've gotten all we can, let's get moving." He said with a nod, sliding past Diana and into the main tent. "Five Card, we're bugging out, get your team falling back to minimum safe-"

"Chase, you've got trouble." Royce said quickly. "There's something in the tent with you, I can see movement but I can't be sure what it-"

Chase reacted on instinct as soon as he heard the whining sound, dropping to one knee as something whistled over the top of his head with the sound of tearing canvas as one of the tent walls came down. He vaguely heard Diana shouting 'Oh shit!' as she opened fire with her pistol, Chase firing blindly towards whatever it was but he only heard the sound of pinging metallic impacts. He heard the high pitched whine again and rolled, stowing his pistol and drawing the AK-47 as he did so, bringing it snapping up to aim at his attacker, seeing him now fully as he felt a stab of fear in his gut.

He stared down what looked like a scrap iron giant, all twisted metal and slapdash paint, a spotlight on the thing's helmet blinking on as he vaguely recognized the Raider boss was wearing some kind of jury rigged power armor, one hand holding something that seemed like someone had strapped a rocket motor onto a sledgehammer.

"YOU COME INTO MY HOUSE!" The figure boomed, drawing the hammer back for another blow, the engine flaring.

"Damn straight!" Diana shouted, the power armored figure staggering as she unleashed a long burst from the Bozar into its side.

The Raider boss swung sideways at her, a glancing blow sending her weapon flying and knocking her across the tent, though by her still moving form she had to be alive. Chase roared in anger and squeezed the trigger of his rifle. While the Raider was in power armor, it didn't seem to be very good power armor, stretches of plating replaced with scrap iron, aluminum and who knew what else, and in close quarters it couldn't ignore thirty 7.62x39mm rounds slamming into it at near point blank range. His rifle ran dry and he ducked another vicious swing from the rocket hammer, diving between the armor's legs to crawl to the other side.

Diana was still moving, drawing her pistol and letting out a hacking cough, her hand trembling. She pressed a button on the side of the high tech revolver, the amber light flashing red. "Chase… Fuck his shit." She coughed, tossing him the weapon. He caught it, standing and turning as the power armored figure rounded on him, bringing the hammer up to strike again. The Raider boss turned just in time to see the barrel of the pistol 'clink' against his reinforced glass faceplate. "Uh?" Was all he had to say before Chase pulled the trigger.

Recoil knocked the pistol's barrel up a good ninety degrees and the sound was like a thunderclap, blasting a hole into the armor's helmet. Chase was briefly grateful for the sturdiness of that helm because judging by the splash of gore coming back out the front, the Raider's head had most likely exploded, the disgusting blast contained mostly by the helmet. The bones in his hand feeling like they were vibrating from the powerful recoil, Chase turned back to Diana as the scrap iron colossus fell to the ground in a clattering heap. "Diana, are you alright?" He asked as the mercenary jabbed her thigh with a Stimpak and Med-X syringe held in one hand.

"Just fine." She grunted, sighing as the medicines eased her pain and started her body on the mend.

He nodded, going to help her up. "Let's get out of here, we can't linger for long, they'll have heard that."

"No, no wait, bedroom over there." She panted, pulling herself to her feet and using the Bozar like a crutch. "He came out of the, bedroom. Check it." She gasped.

He frowned, but nodded, running into the last room they hadn't searched, knocking things over in his haste. He only gave it a few seconds and was about ready to give up when, on a whim, he pulled up the pillow and let out a nervous laugh, grabbing the leather bound book there. "Found the ledger!" He called, running back into the main room, Diana limping towards the door they cut.

"Okay, okay good." The Mercenary nodded. "Now let's get out of heeeere!" She gasped as Chase picked her up and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, their multitude of weapons banging and rattling as he hit the cut canvas so hard he tore straight through.

Ignoring the mercenary's protests Chase called over his radio. "Five Card, you to safety yet?"

The returning voice was distorted over the sound of gunfire. "Taking a fair bit of fire but out, got the prisoners and gave the baddies a bloody nose. You good?"

"I got hit with a fucking rocket sledgehammer!" Diana protested over the radio.

"We're fine." Chase grunted, his legs burning as he ran. "Royce, light it."

"Uh, Chase." The sniper protested. "You're not out of safe distance yet, if you're in the radius when this thing-"

"Royce! I am about to have three dozen pissed off Raiders on my ass, blow it!" He shouted, starting to pant from overexertion, adrenaline and desperation driving him onward as he began to hear bullets whistling by him.

"Doing it." Royce said sullenly. "The call's been made, ten seconds, run like hell!"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Chase said disbelievingly as he began to pant ragged breaths. Maybe talking while running with someone over your shoulder wasn't a good idea. While he was sure Royce's count was correct, it sure seemed to stretch longer than ten seconds as he ran, wondering if the next bullet would find him by more luck than judgement. In the end though it seemed hey made it and he pushed up to the rock they had established as a good cover position for the end move. Dropping down behind cover, he was just in time as suddenly the early evening of the California desert lit up with blinding blue-white light.

A towering beam of ravening energy tore down through the clouds, burning a circular hole in the cloud layer to impact on target right in the middle of camp. The air, rocks, and everything and everyone else unlucky enough to be too close to the impact site was flash-vaporized in the first second. Now occupying significantly more space as superheated vapor, the shock wave expanded outwards in a powerful explosion as the beam spiraled out, making a rapid circle of the camp once before thinning and going out completely.

The Archimedes II orbital laser platform had many drawbacks in terms of power consumption and sustained fire, but when you needed a single target rapidly and completely obliterated without any kind of logistical consideration, then it was about as good a solution as you could get.

"So, that was your solution?" Diana asked, pulling her helmet off and taking a deep breath.

Once Chase confirmed all hostiles had been neutralized, he pulled his own helmet off, looking down into the red glowing crater that would soon harden to cracked glass. "Yeah, sends a message. You approve?"

Diana peered over the lip of the rock, nodding as she looked at the devastation. "Yeah, I approve. Nice work back there." She added.

He hooked an arm around her, helping the injured mercenary walk back to the rendezvous point. "You're not so bad yourself."

XXXXX

After the long trudge back through the wasteland, the shining lights of Vegas were a welcome sight to Chase and his weary companions. Diana had been fine, her heavy armor having absorbed most all of the punishment she had taken, and a few stimpaks had put her right as rain. Chase had radioed command with their success and the weary group was heading up towards the Strip after their long journey. The debriefing at McCarran had been simple enough, with them dropping off their evidence and explaining the results of the mission, Commander Boone seemed to understand they were in dire need of a hot shower and de-stressing so he didn't keep them too long.

"The Tops, I think." Chase decided as they went through the front gates. "I've seen enough bare skin and open flames lately." Five Card grumbled but Chase informed him that it was an executive command decision, he was in charge and it was Royce's turn to be happy anyway, so the commando team plus one mercenary filed in through The Tops front door and after an extensive period of disarming went to find someplace relaxing to crash. Nobody was really in the mood for gambling and alcohol would only make their heads pound worse, so in the end they just found a nice big circular couch to collapse onto while listening to the velvet pipes of Dean Domino up on stage.

Chase couldn't focus much on whatever card game they were playing, he lost track sometimes, glancing over at Diana. "So are we…" He cursed himself, he was hardly very good at this whole social interaction thing but he didn't usually stammer.

"What?" She asked, glancing over to him. "Are we what?"

"Good? Are we good?" He asked after a moment. "You seemed pretty angry at me when we met. I still don't think I really deserved it after what I did."

Diana pursed her lips, the other members of their group suddenly becoming very engrossed in their cards or talking amongst themselves. "I was pretty hard on you yeah, and I'm sorry I acted like a complete bitch." He tried to interject but she cut him off. "Look, it's just where I grew up back in New Reno I learned to take the offensive when it came to dealing with people, and I guess you kinda struck a nerve with me or something and I fell back into those ways. It wasn't right and I'm sorry." She took a deep breath. "So yes, I suppose we are good." She finished, offering a smile.

Chase smiled back. "Good. Yes, that's good." He repeated, looking at his cards and suddenly having difficulty remembering the rules to the game they were playing. "It was… nice to see you again."

She grinned. "Yeah, hopefully it won't be the last time." She glanced around at the casino, nodding. "Pretty nice place, New Reno's fun and all but it's pretty grungy even if most of the really hardcore criminals have been run out. This is… nice."

Chase nodded, sipping some mutfruit juice. "Yeah, certainly different than what I'm used to. If this were back in Bullhead there would be a lot more fungus-based swill and a lot less clothing."

"Sounds like it has its charms." Diana admitted.

The Stalker frowned. "I keep hearing that. I know culture here is different but are people really so repressed they'd trade good food, running water and fresh air to live in a cramped underground ghetto just because it has a looser… dress code?"

Diana shrugged. "Sorry, didn't mean to belittle anything. I suppose people are always just attracted to the exotic. Even if in the end it doesn't make much sense, the odd and the unusual has an appeal, even if it's not actually better."

Chase tapped the table idly as he selected his cards. "I wonder if the old metro will see a tourism boom once they get clean water to start bathing in, clean the tunnels up… it certainly had its charms. Tight knit community, one big family." He mused, before playing his cards.

Their game went on for a while longer, the team letting out the pent up stress and adrenaline from the mission, listening to good music, eating well and talking, laughing the night away. In the end they started breaking up one by one until finally Chase and Diana were alone, walking out onto the nighttime streets. "So you'll be going back to your employer and then… off to whatever the next job is?" Chase asked.

Diana nodded. "Yeah, though the nice thing about being a freelancer is that I pick the jobs as they come, don't like being on any permanent obligations in case I get a sudden itch to go somewhere new."

He nodded. "You know you never told me why you started doing this. The mercenary life. I mean, I joined the army for food and money."

She snorted, looking sideways at him. "You seriously stick around because you like army food and a lousy paycheck?"

He considered, before shrugging. "I suppose it just feels right. Back in Bullhead we looked out for each other, took care of major problems that might threaten a whole community. Since I joined M-SOC I've helped stop renegade Paladins, secured the future of the entirety of Bullhead, discovered the true history and origins of my people, secured a supply line of vital tech to the Mojave. I've done good things, and it feels good."

She nodded. "So you're here to see what mad quest you get thrown on next?" He shrugged but nodded. "One way to keep life interesting I suppose." They came to a halt near a streetlamp, the two turning to look at each other. "Well, I'm going to go give my report to my boss, and then… off to whatever's next I guess."

"Yeah, that sounds right." He agreed. They both stood there in silence for a long moment. On reflection, Chase wasn't sure who moved first, but soon they both leaned in for a kiss beneath the streetlight.

When they pulled apart, Diana sighed. "You know, if my head wasn't still aching and I had a few less bruises…"

"Next time, then." Chase said with a grin.

"Next time." She chuckled, looking at him for a moment. "You're smiling." She noted, reaching out to brush his cheek. "You should do that more often."

"Then I'll practice, for next time."

"Next time." She repeated, withdrawing her hand and walking away, slowly fading into the night.

Chase spun on his heels, still grinning as he walked along, not sure exactly what he was feeling, like he needed to suddenly go dancing or run until he ran out of energy. In the end he just turned on his radio and moved with the music as "Atom Bomb Baby" played him all the way home.

===Author's Note===

Looks like I got my inspiration back, my love of Fallout is flowing through me once more and I'm glittery and excited with the need to write.

Also hope all those so inclined were able to look at the visual guide I posted last chapter, for some reason didn't like me writing out the link so I had to get a bit of a roundabout solution, cursed spam blocker.

As always, reviews very much appreciated.


	27. Crossroads

It had taken the better part of three days for the situation in The Divide to calm down. The last stubborn dregs of the Marked Men had been eliminated. Those who would not run were cornered and destroyed utterly. Victory had been won, but at a bloody cost. Several knights and many more army troopers had fallen, the losses were not beyond what was expected, but this was hardly a clean or swift victory. Defenses had been established, the base itself cleared and its systems activated. Utility Eyebots buzzed around effecting further repairs and beginning the long task of nursing the wounded bunker back into operable condition. As those tasks were being completed, a storage manifest for the base had been found and the storehouses investigated. Alaric spent much of that time in the refurbished hospital, spending time with the wounded as army surgeons and reactivated medical Eyebots flitted about helping where they could, until eventually he was informed that the survey was complete, and he decided to go inspect the facility himself.

When he went out to the meeting place, he smiled, seeing an unexpected face. "Kruse, I didn't think you'd be up and about."

The knight smiled, leaning heavily on a walking stick, but seeming in good condition considering what he'd been through. "Ah, I needed to get out, be useful a bit. No broken bones or anything so a little exercise should do me good."

He nodded, waving his hand. "Lead on then, please. I'm interested to know what we've found exactly."

Kruse nodded, starting walking, Alaric matching pace with the wounded knight. "Well, first off, the big stuff. There are thirteen intact nuclear warheads here, five of which are mounted on intact missiles. A couple other missiles might be salvageable and we think there are more warheads scattered about buried through The Divide, the Eyebots should be able to track them down once we get them set up properly."

Alaric nodded, not a huge stockpile but an almost unbeatable trump card to hold over the other wasteland nations.

"Unfortunately, it seems most of the intact missiles were fired off against the Legion back when you hit them. So we'll need to use that bomber of yours to get the other bombs to their target."

Alaric nodded. "Certainly limits our rapid deployment options, we only have the one bomber and who knows how well it would stand up to the shockwave of a nuclear blast." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "Well, still an amazing find, just knowing we have even one of these things will get the NCR to start playing nice, and taking us seriously."

Kruse nodded. "There are also significant stockpiles of conventional weapons down in the armory. We're still getting an exact count, but several hundred R91 assault rifles, light machineguns, miniguns, those 10mm light miniguns, assorted marksman and sniper rilfes, a whole mess of 9mm handguns. Not to mention an impressive stockpile of ammo for all of the above."

Alaric nodded thoughtfully. "Good, good. A sudden influx of small arms will do wonders for our military strength, and diversifying the calibers we use will let make proper use of all the ammo we find as well as what we produce ourselves."

Kruse nodded, leading him into a mostly open room with various tables for weapons set around. "Indeed, most of it's fairly standard small arms that we can push into the regular infantry without any real note, but there are a few pieces I think you'll find interesting."

Curious, Alaric walked to the nearest table, looking at the weapon there. Before him was a rather large heavy machinegun. "Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machinegun." He said, reaching out to run a finger along the barrel. "Designed by John Moses Browning in 1933, three hundred and forty eight years old and there still isn't a gun that does what it does better."

Kruse laughed. "Are you trying to impress me, lord?"

Alaric shrugged. "I read a lot." He looked down the table, cocking his head. "What's this?" He asked. It was obviously another M2 machine gun, but modified. There was a handle mounted on the side, near the base of the barrel and a joystick like grip mounted atop the boxy receiver, which was in turn hooked to a box mounted over the weapon's thumb trigger.

"Modification kit." Kruse explained. "US Army had so many of these sitting around back in the day that they had the bright idea to make them man-portable for power armor troops. The trigger on that joystick is hooked up to the gun's normal trigger, we test fired this earlier, works great. Nowhere near the rate of fire of a minigun, but much more power per round of course. Overheating can be a bit of a problem with only one barrel but considering that this many of these things have just fallen into our laps."

"It would be foolish not to make use of them." Alaric finished. "And besides, the Browning M2 is supremely reliable and extremely accurate. Considering we're not currently making any weapons for power armor troops right now, this is quite a nice surprise."

Kruse grinned, leading him to the next table. "On a similar note, what do you make of this?" He asked, motioning to the weapon sitting there.

Alaric frowned, cocking his head as he regarded the large firearm on the table. The large gun had a collapsing stock and a pistol grip, the barrel was extremely long and fitted with a large air cooling shroud, and the muzzle terminated in a vented recoil compensator. A few large drum magazines were sitting nearby and oddly enough it looked like it was loaded from the side. He pulled a round out of a magazine. "7.62x51 rounds. Very heavy by the looks of it, long barrel with a heavy heat sink and air shroud for sustained fire, adjustable stock… this thing looks like a squad support weapon but it's configured like a combat rifle." He tapped the round on the table, thinking. "Is this designed for use with power armor?"

Kruse beamed, nodding. "Indeed lord, a specialty Heavy Assault Rifle meant for power armored troops. Just coming out of the experimental phase when the Great War started."

Alaric nodded, setting the round down. "Explains why the cooling shroud has to be so big, rapid mobility, high rates of fire, sustained combat at a much faster pace than a normal infantryman would see. Someone in power armor could really make a mess of things with a weapon like this very quickly." Kruse nodded, leading him towards a door on the other end of the room. "Kruse." Alaric began slowly. "Something's nagging at me. You say you found those in the armory, along with more. This place isn't a weapons stockpile, they wouldn't keep around piles of weapons they wouldn't need. So why are there racks of guns intended for use with powered armor?"

Kruse turned, grinning. "Oh, you'll like this." He chuckled, hitting the button to open the final door.

Alaric walked slowly forward into the last room as the lights flickered on. He let out a shocked breath as he looked around. Arrayed before him was an entire room full of power armor, multiple ranks deep and stretching off into the distance in the long room. Standing slumped slightly forward as if resting, were a great many of the hulking figures, heads bowed as if in salute. He shook himself from the sudden shock and walked towards one, inspecting the armor. It wasn't any design he was familiar with, though it looked like a contemporary of the T-51 based on its overall design features. The helmet had a rounded 'nose' with a pair of breathing hoses attached, and the eyepieces resembled goggles of a kind, there was also a headlamp and targeting monocle. The chest bulged forward in the middle with an armored wedge like shape, each arm beginning with a pair of solid, orb shaped pauldrons. He peeked around back at the boxy power backpack, noting the identification number stenciled there.

"T-57." Kruse said, seeing where he'd looked. "We were as surprised as you were, we've only heard vague references to this type of armor before."

"I've never even heard of it." Alaric said, genuinely surprised as he had read up carefully on most prewar weapons and armor development programs.

"Made specifically for the Air Force." Kruse said, looking at one of the suits. "I know, I know, great big hulking armor doesn't seem like it would fly well. But there was a lot of fear about riots and armies of infiltrators, not to mention the very real threat of invasion by China back before the war. So the Air Force commissioned their own original design to help defend their bases and equip some of their special forces teams. This place was serving as some kind of staging point it seems, based on the records we found. Explains why there are so many suits and the weapons for them."

Alaric nodded, still a bit shocked. "How many are there?" He asked as he looked at the ranks of waiting suits.

"Two hundred." Kruse said, nodding. "Which is quite an amazing find, storehouses of power armor like this are very rare, but they have been found in the past, usually at very important military facilities.

"There's enough here for a whole army." Alaric gasped, his mechanical heart keeping him from getting too overexcited, but he might have started sweating a little. The nukes were a trump card to be sure, something he could wave about in negotiations, but they were so precious he hardly dared to actually use them. But these suits of armor would be a real, tangible weapon he could deploy!

"Don't get too hasty." Kruse warned. "The Vegas Brotherhood has hundreds of power armor units in the field, more than are arrayed here now. And we had even more when we battled the NCR at Helios One, five hundred knights and paladins stood that day and we took terrible losses. Don't go and start thinking this is some ultimate weapon. But it is quite a formidable force, waiting to be activated."

Alaric nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Yes, right of course." He said, looking over them with a steadier eye. "This is… a start. Yes, a fine start. I've always meant to include power armor troops in a special army corps, but I thought it would have to wait until we started developing our own new models before we could deploy them in any significant numbers. This will let me accelerate my plans, not to mention start giving my troops some practical experience with using power armor."

Kruse nodded, grinning. "It is quite a nice find indeed. By all accounts these suits should be more or less the equal of any other prewar armor, and as you already saw you have plenty of weapons ready to equip your troops with."

Alaric gave one of the suits a firm pat before turning back to Kruse. "Alright, well anything else?"

The knight nodded, leading him out back into the hall. "We found a number of robots here, beyond the Eyebots of course. A half dozen Sentry Bots deactivated in a storage hold, we're having our techs work on their programming now."

"Good, good." Alaric thought. "We have found a few others of those in other places, other bunkers. We get them back to the Mojave defending places like Hoover and Helios, supporting checkpoints, it will let us free up even more Securitrons for the main army."

"Agreed." Kruse nodded. "We also found a few of those large laser turrets, we're getting them set up outside to defend the facility. The Eyebot production facilities are going strong again and we're working on updating their programming. The more Eyebots we turn on, the more production facilities they fix, and so on and so forth. They're quite industrious little things, fixing all kinds of technical problems quite quickly. While major repairs will take some time, for the short term we're looking pretty secure here. We'll start sending them off to Hoover and Helios pretty soon, they should be able to handle a lot of tasks there."

"The more we can automate industry the better." Alaric pointed out. "Lower population is our crippling weakness compared to the Legion and NCR, we need as many robots doing as many jobs as we can get. Anything else?"

"Well there is one thing." Kruse said as they entered a lab of some sort. A few scribes were mulling about taking notes.

Alaric frowned, looking at what they were studying. More of those strange laser rifles, wooden stocks, cranks, focusing lenses on long metal spines. He picked one up, examining it. "I found one of these on a ghoul out during the battle."

Kruse nodded. "We found more once the fighting was over. They were being carried by ghouls of unknown origin. Each ghoul was wearing metal armor and many were carrying energy weapons, this being the most common design. It's completely wasteland made, some parts are scrap, others are completely original. All follow the same basic design but are obviously handmade by individual craftsmen based on the nonstandard parts and design quirks." Kruse sighed, looking around. "Some of them bear writing in a language we've never seen before, as well. We can't translate it."

Alaric frowned, putting the weapon down. "So we have an unknown faction of ghouls running around with the capability of manufacturing laser weapons, who were in contact with the Marked Men at the very least, but evidently so far from home or so removed from local culture their language isn't even translatable."

Kruse nodded. "Yes, that seems to sum it up."

Sighing, Alaric ran his fingers through his hair, looking back at the rifle on the table, feeling a strange sense of dread. "Well, for now there's not much we can do but carry on with our plans as before. Hopefully losing this force sent a message to whoever, or whatever, was trying to influence things here. If they show up again then so be it, we'll deal with them when the time comes. For now, we've won a significant victory, and have grown much stronger."

Kruse nodded, the two exiting the laboratory, a pit of unease growing in Alaric's stomach as he finished the tour. Beyond what he had already seen there wasn't much interesting left to explore, a full account of all recovered arms and armor was being formulated, and The Divide was completely secured as the western tip of the Mojave's military control. If there really was some nebulous enemy waiting in the wings, then Alaric wouldn't let himself start jumping at shadows. If and when this unknown threat made itself appearing, they would deal with it the same way they had all the threats that had come before. With blazing rifles, thunderous armor, and nuclear fire.

XXXXX

The next day dawned over the newly pacified Divide, and Alaric was preparing to head for home. Everything here was set up, a garrison pulled from the victorious troopers and their robot support units was being set up, the Brotherhood troops were preparing to march home. Technicians were pouring over the facility, inspecting systems, programming computers, performing checks and maintenance on the suits of power armor. Alaric wasn't at the bunker right now though, he'd said he needed some air, a little time to himself and marched out into The Divide after a few patrols confirmed that the broken landscape seemed rather safe for now.

He was sitting on the highest surviving level of a damaged building, his power armor standing dormant next to him, now only clad in the close fitting padded jumpsuit he wore underneath it. A campfire crackled in a fire ring before him, smoke twisting up into the wind-whipped sky as a skillet of blood sausage sizzled next to a camp coffee pot. He had been sitting there for a few minutes now, having left specific instructions that he was not to be disturbed until he decided to return.

"Divide's not shaken so much since the earth tore open." A deep, familiar voice said.

Alaric poured two coffee mugs, holding one out, Ulysses taking it before sitting down opposite the campfire. "It was quite a battle." He agreed. "Victory, in the end, though of course it took a few unexpected turns."

"Battle never goes as planned." Ulysses nodded, removing his breath mask to sip the steaming drink as Alaric turned the sausages to keep them from burning. "Was surprised to see you, shouldn't have been. Listened to the radio, learned what's being born in the east."

Alaric nodded, sipping his own coffee. "The Mojave Confederation." He chuckled, blowing out a breath as he looked out over The Divide. "It's shaping up beyond my wildest expectations, good people, growing economy, industry and infrastructure and agriculture. And of course an army sufficient to defend it against its enemies."

"Bear on one side, Bull on the other." Ulysses droned. "Each hungry and mad. I saw the spark in your eye as we talked, should never have doubted."

Alaric swilled the coffee around in the ceramic mug. "Yes. I suppose the Confederation really was born here, as an idea, at any rate." He sighed, remembering what felt like another life.

+++Three weeks before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam+++

Heavy booted footfalls tramped down the concrete walkway. Alaric rolled his shoulders inside the great hulking T-51 armor suit, readying his weapons to continue on. A 10mm minigun slung over his back, Red Glare hanging at his side, light machinegun in his hands and an UZI 9mm SMG in a hip holster. He'd expended a lot of ordinance on the way down here but finally he'd made it. Tunnelers, Marked Men and Deathclaws hadn't stopped him, and finally he was at his destination. ED-E warbled thoughtfully in the air next to him as he approached the last secure steel door. "Easy buddy, we've got this." He said, patting the robot's armored shell with an armored gauntlet. He pushed the button to open the final door, bringing his LMG up to sweep the cavernous space he saw before him. And there, at the end of the long walkway, was the man responsible for all of this. Ulysses.

Alaric grimaced behind his helmet as he walked over, the man in the long coat looking up at the missile in front of him, Alaric unable to not feel the weight of all the terrible power here pressing down on him. "So we finally meet face to face." He said, voice rendered robotic through his helmet speaker. "In a manner of speaking, at least."

Ulysses slowly rounded on him as the missile finished moving up into firing position. "You." He growled in that deep, droning voice. "Judging by your shadow, you couldn't let your machine go."

Alaric glanced over to ED-E, before nodding. "Eddie is my friend, my companion. That means something to me, I would never just throw him away."

Ulysses growled, but shook his head. "Doesn't matter, cannot stop what has begun here. What you began here, so many long days ago. You say you don't remember, don't know if that's a cruelty or a mercy."

Alaric sighed through his helmet. "No, I don't remember. This place, the people, if this was my fault, then maybe it's best that whatever man did that is all but dead now. I'm here now, he isn't. You still going to blame me for the mistake of a man buried back in Goodsprings?"

The dreadlocked man growled again, though he seemed to do that all the time. "Memory might fade, but there's still blood on your hands. You destroyed a nation being born here, something new, something good. More than just another name, another place, hope for the future. The Divide, the road you walked, I could have found a home here, new way of living. Now, nothing."

The armored figure started pacing a little, LMG carried low and relaxed in his hands. "That's what this is about? You're angry this place was destroyed? Look, I'm sorry, but what happened here was an accident, a terrible accident, and I would undo it if I could. That's all it was though, a dumb, meaningless accident, what you're doing is mass murder!"

The strange warrior shook his head. "No, not meaningless. You taught a lesson here, one I learned well. The strength to destroy a nation, the will to do it. That was what you brought that day in that… package. Now you brought it again, and I am going to use the lesson you taught."

Alaric stopped his pacing, turning to look at Ulysses. "Lesson? You think there was a lesson here?" He asked, slowly beginning to walk forward. "Some… higher purpose? Fate, destiny perhaps?"

To his credit, Ulysses didn't flinch as the power armored figure was bearing down on him. Though whether this courage or he simply didn't care if he lived or died, who could say. "I accept that your act here was an accident. It's why it's so wrong. You never took responsibility, never once. Brought this place to life, then burned it all and didn't notice either time. But I learned your lesson well and now I'm going to do the same thing to your home. The Bear and the Bull are both going to die."

Alaric kept walking forward, his pace slow, measured, the heavy footfalls filling the dead air. "You think the NCR is my home?" He asked. "If I ever walked there I can't remember. I've worked with them for a while now, they're good people, most of them anyway. But the more time I spend with them the more I realize they don't have the answers I was looking for, they're weighed down by strife and infighting, they're greedy and callous and they don't really care about the people in the Mojave. But what better course is there? The Legion? A bunch of raping, murdering slave drivers? Mr. House? A self-obsessed old ghost who wanted to rebuild the world to satisfy his own ego?"

Ulysses shook his head again. "All should burn, then, if none can find a new path to walk."

Alaric paused, his foot resting on the first step up to where Ulysses was standing. "Maybe…" He was genuinely lost in thought, Ulysses seeming oddly curious as the armored figure simply stood there. He let his LMG dangle on its carry strap, reaching up to undo the hoses on his helmet and remove it, looking up to regard Ulysses with his own eyes. "Then maybe history should repeat. You said I started something here, something that could have become a new nation, a new flag. A new way of living, not Bear, not Bull, not Old World ghosts. Something new, something better. That curse you gave me, that shining chip, it's given me the power to remake the Mojave. I could make a new society, a new nation, do it right this time."

Ulysses paused for a moment, seeming to consider it, before he shook his head. "No. No, you would only bring devastation, like you did to The Divide. You have no respect for history, no self-control. You had to come here, had to learn the why of it, couldn't leave well enough alone. You could never leave well enough alone, it's why this world died, you couldn't make a new path, you're choked by the ash of the future you already burned."

The armored figure frowned, starting to slowly walk forward again, taking the stairs one at a time. "Is that it?" He asked, his voice low and dangerous. "That's your reason? I think I understand why you're angry now. It's because this was an accident after all, and despite all your words, you can't accept that!" He spat angrily. "For all your fancy talk and metaphors you can't accept such a simple truth. You had to see some big message here, some greater purpose, well if there's one thing the Mojave taught me through blood and sweat it's that sometimes there is no purpose!" He shouted, taking another step. Big MT, Sierra Madre, Zion, all the memories were flooding back and the puzzle pieces fit into place, anger welling up inside of him. "Sometimes there is no 'why of it', sometimes bad shit happens to good people for no damn reason other than someone made a mistake, or some chain of events sparking off an unseen outcome. No reason, no forethought, no meaning!"

"No." Ulysses growled, shaking his head. "No, there was a lesson here. Even if you failed to understand it. That's why you'll fail, you bring destruction but you never take responsibility, never look upon what you have done. You come, bring ruin, and leave."

"So I should have stayed and watched this place die? Like you did with New Cannan?" Alaric snapped back. "Because that makes it alright, doesn't it? Watch a city and all its men, women and children being murdered, spout some poetic quip about carrying their history with you and everything's better eh? The only good apocalypses are the ones we carry with us in our hearts? Well if that's your message then you're just as big a hypocrite as I am!" He shouted again, jabbing his finger angrily at the man standing there, who seemed shocked, but he cut him off before he could speak. "You want to hear about unthinking, uncaring destruction? I went to Big MT, got the shiny axe to prove it." He said, waving the Protonic Inversal Axe. "You almost unleashed every horror of that place onto the wasteland, almost broke them out of their containment by asking them those questions. The old world gods you feared so much almost destroyed the world again, and it would have been all your fault! But you just walked off as happy as could be without ever giving it another thought, I had to go there and fix things, get them back on the right track, keep them contained."

He kept climbing the stairs, his armored form looming ever closer. "Remember Elijah? Remember where you sent him? He found the Sierra Madre. You could have stopped him, hell it was you who let him find that place! I had to crawl through the filth and the poison to keep him from destroying the world as we know it, he almost succeeded! A lot of people suffered and died before I got there though, good people died pointless deaths choking on poisoned air because he was let free. He came this close, this close to unleashing an apocalypse upon the Mojave and choking all life out of it forever, until I stopped him! Even the poker chip you bade me carry, hoping it would kill me, proved to be a weapon so powerful it's almost destroyed the Mojave just by being there, making it tear itself apart in a power struggle, let alone using it to create an unstoppable army if it fell in the wrong hands! So do not give me this sanctimonious shit about owning up to my actions and not doing things on accident when it seems all I've done since I woke up was follow your trail of unthinking destruction across the whole Mojave, cleaning up your fucking messes! Who are you, that do not know your history? All you've done since you left this place was flirt with disaster on a colossal scale without ever realizing how close you came to damning us all!"

He finally reached the top of the stairs, looming over the man before him. "And now you're going to do the exact same damn thing all over again. Destroy a lot of people out of pure spite, because you think it fits into some damn poetic notion on meaning and symbols? All of this to spite me? Or convince yourself there was some deeper meaning to what happened here? If you want this place to have meaning, then let some good come of it. Let me make a new flag, a new nation, make something good and strong. Because what you're doing isn't going to create anything, or find any new path, and it's certainly not going to mean a damn thing to all the people you are going to get killed. They won't see any grand design or deeper lesson here, just an end to all they ever cared about because of the meaningless actions of a man they never knew. You have one chance, one chance to set things right, to make this day, in this place, mean something for the future. Stand with me, let us make our stand here, and live or die this act will have a hell of a lot more meaning than anything else you could have done."

Ulysses was silent for a long moment, slowly turning to look up at the missile, and the old world flag moving slightly in the breeze. "Our enemies close in around us." He said eventually. "Come to take revenge for all we've done. There are a great many of them, perhaps too many, even for those like you and me." He looked up at him, a defiant fire lighting in his eyes. "If we cannot stop what comes, then let us make our stand here. Two Couriers, together, at the Divide."

Back in the present, Alaric shook himself from his reverie. "Yes, it was here I decided on the course I had to take. In the end, I suppose I did learn something here. I came here looking for my past, you know, but instead I found the path forward."

Ulysses nodded, Alaric putting the sausages on plates and handing him one. "Yes, there was a lesson here after all, one for each of us. I've thought long on what you said that day, took your words to heart. Not everything has meaning, not all things have a reason to be. But we can make meanings, make a reason to care, reason to be. Stayed here for myself, penance for the past, kept an eye on the tortured earth, kept the blight from spreading as much as I could. Maybe the threat is gone for good I can finally leave this place, find a new road to walk."

Alaric looked up, surprised, but nodded. "Oh, yes, works fine now." He patted the high tech axe still hooked to his armor's waist beside him. It had been damaged during the battle at that final bunker, and in desperation he'd torn a simple fire axe out of its mounting after a hit from a super sledge had knocked some widget loose in the advanced weapon. Alaric nodded, eating as he considered the man's words. "Speaking of, I don't suppose you know anything about the strange ghouls here, the ones with the metal armor and laser rifles?"

Ulysses considered thoughtfully. "Saw them arrive a few weeks ago. Watched them through the scope. Moved like soldiers, spoke like fanatics, bore the leopard's face on their helms. I never got close enough to hear their words, but after they came everything changed. The Marked Men listened to them, got organized, hunted the Tunnelers and caged the Deathclaws. They listened to the strangers words like they came from the mouth of a god, sermons and chants. They were building something here, preparing, biding time. You put a stop to it."

Alaric sighed, nodding darkly. "Sounds like they were building an army. This could be a whole new threat on the horizon, but right now I can't do anything about them but ready ourselves for whatever comes. Have the NCR and Legion to deal with in the meantime and they've got me in a bit of a bind. Legion could do a hell of a lot of damage if they attack, and if we lose too much we won't be able to resist the NCR's advances like we have before. Slavers on one border and bureaucrats on the other."

The dreadlocked courier chuckled. "Bear and Bull will learn that the Wolf is fiercest backed into the corner."

Alaric cocked his head. "So I'm the Wolf now? Or perhaps the Mojave Confederation is? Interesting habit you have of giving every nation an animal spirit."

Ulysses ignored the gentle barb. "You came into the world alone, brought people together, howled until they listened then taught them to run as a pack. It's as fitting a symbol as any."

Alaric nodded, finishing his small meal and drinking the last of his coffee. "Well, whatever comes we'll meet it with teeth and claws, as always. In the meantime… it was good to see you again."

As they shook hands, Ulysses nodded. "Yes, my time here is finally ending. The road beckons. I think I'll walk south, nothing to see to the East, you walked the West. I have new roads to walk, new places to see."

Alaric nodded silently, turning to overlook the Divide, strange feelings welling up inside him, he didn't voice them but Ulysses picked up on it anyway.

"You miss it, don't you?" He asked. "The open road, wind in your hair. You were never meant to sit upon a throne or entertain ambassadors and bureaucrats. You have a wasteland soul, it won't be content with life in a city, surrounded by shining lights."

Alaric sighed, unable to deny the words, running a hand over the rubble and breathing deep of the wasteland air. "Maybe, Ulysses, when this is all over, I'll find my own road to walk. And maybe we'll meet again somewhere out on a dusty, forgotten road, and share a fire again."

"Then, until we meet again, on that lonesome road." Ulysses said with a nod, before he slipped out of the door and was gone, leaving Alaric to stare out over the wasteland in contemplative silence.

===Author's Note===

Wow, looks like I've got the bug right now, consider these rapid fire updates my way of making up for the times I left this story idle for weeks at a time. A little flashback, a little wrapup, a little incredible military might, setting up for things to come and giving a little insight into Alaric with the help of an old friend.

As always, reviews greatly appreciated.


	28. Marching to Hell

Alaric didn't stay long in The Divide after victory was secured. There was something strange about the bunker complex there, it put him on edge to be there. While he was delighted to have the assets it provided to his cause, the implications of what the place could do if unleashed unnerved him. He'd faced his share of danger before, but what sat in those missile tubes was different than anything he'd faced before. No keening mutants, no deadly robots, just the power to unmake a civilization, sleeping silently in their silos waiting for the whim of whoever could push the button. The bunker felt like some ancient legend, like the tomb of a warrior king. Cold steel and wild steeds taken with him to the afterlife. Probably just his overactive imagination, but Alaric was much happier when The Divide was reduced to a blip on the map and a progress report viewed from within the Lucky 38.

All that said, he decided he'd rather have been fighting ghouls, mutants and robots at the same time right now than have to continue his actual task, namely writing the basic legal code for the Mojave. He had no experience in this, no training. He led by example and force of personality, and didn't really consider himself an especially wise ruler, at least not yet. He'd made some good calls and gotten things done, but Solomon he was not. He needed to get this done quickly too, the Rangers were coming home sooner or later and if he was going to put them to work, he would have to have laws in place to actually enforce.

He cocked his head, the thought of Tycho sparking something in his mind. He kept typing up some basic notes and asked Yes Man to direct the Ranger to his office. Who better to get advice to at least get started than from a prolific lawman from an organization renowned for keeping the peace for centuries? Half an hour later, Tycho walked in, wearing simple civilian clothes, the iconic ranger trenchcoat would be too obvious to wear walking into his home and capitol building.

"Tycho, good to see you, how goes the exodus?" He asked, rising to shake the ranger's hand.

Tycho gave him the usual curt nod. "Well, slowly by your request. Rangers are resigning their posts and letting their tours of duty run out, making their way to the border in little groups, settling down as immigrants in the Mojave. We'll be ready for muster when you're ready to have us."

Alaric grinned, all according to plan then. "And the NCR isn't causing any problems there?"

A brief shake of the head. "They can't, we're not violating any laws. We're fulfilling our terms of service and then leaving through legal means. They can confiscate any equipment they issued to us, but our armor and coats, most of our guns, we owned all that before we joined them. Private property, they can't take it."

Alaric snorted. "I'd pay good caps to see some NCR pencil pusher try to separate a Ranger from the Big Iron. Glad to hear it's working out, but I didn't call you here to ask about the overall plan. Please, sit." He offered, the ranger sitting down around a table with him, the sovereign of Vegas taking a seat near him. "I've been trying to write up the basic, overarching legal code and system for the Confederation." Alaric began. "Did my research and been thinking of a few potential models, but all the legal treatises I have access to are prewar, not many such things have been written since the bombs dropped. The Rangers kept the peace in the Mojave for centuries, and now they're going to do it again, so I thought it only prudent that I get your advice on where to base the laws you're going to be enforcing."

Tycho folded his hands before him, considering for long, silent moments. "Been doing research of my own on your Confederation, the type of government and overall structure. Very different to the NCR. Each township makes its own laws, joins up via treaty with the capitol, New Vegas, which is the founding township. Central government isn't representative of the towns but is strictly bound to minimal interference. Not democratic, but respects free will and rights."

Alaric nodded. "I've been meaning to make a central government more representative, but that's a problem for another time."

The Ranger agreed. "Not criticizing, it works, people seem happy. Each town writes and enforces their own laws, sheriffs, deputies, lawmen. You want us to enforce laws in these towns?"

Alaric considered. "No… That's something the NCR would do. The central promise of those treaties would be minimal interference in the internal matters of the towns. So the Rangers wouldn't be used to enforce any local laws, just the overall national ones and in the regions between the townships. I mean there's plenty of people who live in little trading posts or shacks out in the wasteland who live within our borders. They're just as much citizens as any."

Tycho nodded. "Then the Mojave's laws need to avoid conflict with the laws of the townships, let them run their own affairs so long as they don't cross certain lines, we don't get involved unless there's a problem they can't handle on their own, or the greater laws of the Mojave have been broken."

Snapping his fingers, Alaric agreed. "Tycho, you're onto something there, I like this. The Mojave Confederation was founded on certain principles. Free will, independent development, minimal government oversight of individual settlements. So how about this, we set up the laws so that the overall Mojave laws cover the absolute bare minimum of legality. The lowest possible level at which something can be legal. Townships can go higher if they want but can't go lower." Tycho just looked at him patiently, waiting for him to continue. "I mean, take weapons ownership for example." Alaric began, leaning in a little. "Right now there are no prohibitions for anything that could be considered a personal weapon being carried around. Really the only things I've considered outlawing in private ownership are things that could level buildings in a few seconds like a Fat Man or something, at least without a permit. But that's beside the point, the overall Mojave laws for weapon ownership wouldn't outlaw most any firearm or energy weapon. Townships could become more strict by outlawing some or all if they wished, but they couldn't become less strict by making it legal for a private citizen to hold onto a tactical nuclear device. Or take chems and alcohol. Any township could outlaw something they believe shouldn't be had that's legal in the Mojave as a whole, but they couldn't make something we prohibited nationally to be legal in their borders."

Tycho nodded, following along. "Sounds similar to the informal code we followed in the old days. Keep the peace, let people make up their own minds about most things. Helps you because you've got so many different groups joining up. Make the laws as minimal as possible and still maintain safety and order, let people make up their own minds about anything beyond the most basic, universal issues."

Alaric grinned. "Exactly, this lets everyone solve the problem for themselves without conflict. Bullhead can be as lax as they want and Goodsprings can be as puritanical as they ever decide to be. If you don't like the laws where you live, move somewhere else or change it locally, no huge system that's gotten so bit it's running by sheer momentum regardless of what the people forced to follow it think."

"Going to create some tensions between the towns." Tycho pointed out. "Some people envious of somewhere else, while others might get upset at what they see as immoral practices."

Alaric shrugged. "Their problem, live and let live I say. Now, I wanted your advice on the structure of the Rangers as well…" They worked together for a few hours, hammering out the basic details of both the Mojave legal structure and code, as well as the general structure of the Rangers when they were reformed under Confederation loyalty. While there was still a significant amount of work yet to be done, eventually Alaric was satisfied he could send his basic writeup off to someone else to examine and critique, before he'd send it off to the towns to be ratified. Given that he was careful to write the basic provisions to not violate any major laws or customs, it should eventually pass simply.

In his tower, Alaric kicked back and opened a bottle of scotch, quite pleased that once again he'd managed to convince his citizens to solve their own damn problems while thinking he was responsible for making it all work. A cynic might call it self-aggrandizing manipulation, but Alaric preferred to think he was just helping to motivate people by giving them something to look up to. People could solve all manner of problems with a little hope, and if he had to play the role of the wise king to make it happen, then that was the part he would play for them.

XXXXX

Ambassador McKinley was sitting in his office, reviewing the report from Bishop, the mercenary sitting across from him. All in all not a perfect outing, they didn't get the kind of hard evidence he'd wanted that he might be able to use to put that scumbag out of business permanently but it had worked out well in other ways. They had gotten their first real look at the M-SOC force that he had been wondering about and they were just as competent as he had expected. He needed to impress upon the people back home that they were dealing with a well-funded, well equipped professional military here, and that any conflict either military or diplomatic would have to be handled carefully. At the very least the immediate problem had been dealt with and they had some circumstantial evidence to go on, but it was nothing conclusive and someone like Hock would just bide his time and spring up somewhere else with a new band of goons like crab grass.

"You look troubled." Bishop pointed out, having traded her bulky armor for jeans and a jacket as not to stand out too much.

"Just contemplating a battle I've fought for too many years." McKinley sighed. Hock had been a thorn in the side of the Republic for too long, but he'd never had a chance to go directly after him. He'd tried to push for reforms or legal action before but nothing came of it, and now the man was squarely an obstacle to his job getting done. Good relations with the Confederation relied on healthy trade routes, and he couldn't maintain trade with that greedy bastard ruining things. He tapped his fingers on his desk, looking over the evidence recovered in the raid. Circumstantial, shipping reports, could have come from anyone. Of course Hock was well placed enough to get his hands on them, but there was no proof it actually came from him.

"Sorry you didn't get everything you wanted." Bishop offered, sighing. "I'd want someone like him gone too, royal pain."

"Yes, he is." McKinley mused, drumming his fingers as he tried to make up his mind. Nobody survived the game of politics as long as he had without getting their hands dirty on occasion. Whatever he'd done in his long career he just had to remind himself he did it with the best interest of the Republic and its people at heart, not personal gain or base greed. Had he compromised his integrity? Yes, on occasion. But he had never compromised his ideals. He just needed to take the time to make sure what he was about to do would fall on the right side of that thin ethical line. Slowly, he took a holotape out of his desk drawer and set it out in front of him, looking down at it pensively.

"What's that?" The mercenary asked curiously.

"This contains all the evidence and notes I have ever gathered about Dominic Hock." McKinley said simply. "Minus anything that could actually identify me as the person who collected the information, of course."

"Of course." Bishop answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Indeed. It's all circumstantial of course. You could never win any kind of court case with it. But the writing is on the wall. And combined with the information collected in this raid of yours it's fairly damning. Still circumstantial, but damning." McKinley said, reaching out to toy with the tape a bit with a finger, scooting it across his desk.

Bishop watched it scoot back and forth. "Of course someone outside the NCR wouldn't have to deal with all those legal issues." She pointed out rhetorically. "And this Hock character wouldn't have any hold over them. If… sufficiently motivated then they might be able to remove the issue through less savory means."

"Yes, quite." McKinley said, in a casual, almost bored voice. "Of course I imagine someone like Alaric would reward anyone who brought him such important intelligence quite handsomely. But it would be quite illegal for me to do that of course, else I might be tempted."

"Of course." Bishop agreed. "Someone like you has responsibilities, an image to uphold. You could never stoop to such an action."

"Indeed, of course should the tape fall into the wrong hands…" McKinley shrugged. "Say some rogue element or thief who wanted to make a quick bit of money by turning it over to the local government… Well I only have my guards here so the only way to conduct an investigation would be to plead my case to local law enforcement."

"Who would most likely not do the most stellar job, considering their own nation was benefiting from the culprit never being found." Bishop pointed out, nodding sagely. "Probably wiser to just not report the theft in my opinion, nothing would come of calling it in but embarrassment for the diplomatic corps."

McKinley sighed. "Yes, you're quite right, reporting a theft like that would only lead to me eating crow over the security breach in the first place. Probably just best to take all due precautions and hope nothing happens to it." He put the disk back down on his desk, looking at it for a moment. "Well, I'm off for lunch. I hear The Gourmand is serving Brahmin Wellington today with a wine sampling, I would hate to miss that." He said, clapping his hands as he stood. He walked over to the hat stand, putting on a grey trilby to match his suit. "Oh, you just show yourself out." He said, giving the mercenary a little wave before leaving her alone in his office.

XXXXX

Anguis kept his true emotions hidden behind the mask of the loyal servant as he stood in Lanius' planning room, the battered lord overlooking a map of the region with various troop dispositions and borders laid out before him. The Mojave and NCR to the west and an unknown expanse of wasteland to the east, with their own territory lain out before them. Of course what was 'their' territory was becoming increasingly difficult to be certain of, with the different Centurions carving out their own power bases. Oh no war had started yet, no declarations of independence or open revolt, but if you knew how to read the situation it was obvious where the new borders were being drawn. Supply lines were being consolidated, troops reorganized and repositioned, when the coin dropped every commander with dreams of ruling was standing ready to carve out their piece of territory.

"And you believe these are the Centurions most likely to rebel?" Lanius asked, looking over a list of commanders Anguis had formulated. It was not the full list he had put together actually, it wouldn't do for Lanius to know all his potential enemies.

"Yes my lord, given the signs I believe they are most likely to begin open revolt should the situation favor them." And the most likely to cause trouble for someone else rising to the throne, egotists one and all who started thinking they were the rightful heirs or some such nonsense. The others on his secret list were more docile, more reliable, would be more accepting of a return to the status quo.

"Then they shall have to be dealt with." Lanius said simply, standing up, looming over the wasteland in miniature.

Anguis bowed. Lanius was a fairly simple man at heart, it wasn't difficult to predict what he was going to do. When faced with an obstacle, the shortest path was straight through it. "A wise decision my lord. How do you plan to resolve this brewing crisis?"

"I shall muster the Legion and march upon them, subjugate the rebels and remind the Legionnaires where their loyalty lies. Once their leaders are dead their troops can be absorbed into the rightful Legion once again." Lanius declared proudly.

Anguis nodded, it had been one of the expected decisions. "That should certainly help resolve the situation." He said with a little bow. Yes indeed, especially if he made certain anonymous tips, slipped a few carefully disguised secrets into the right hands, and ensured Lanius was walking into a trap. Why he could decimate the troops of those most likely to rebel and then if the right commanders could be manipulated into moving in to absorb the survivors…

"Anguis, what of our other enemies?" Lanius asked, jolting him out of his schemes.

"Of course, of course. The NCR has strengthened their military position along the border in response to tension with the newly formed Mojave Confederation. There is not open war between them but tensions are high, and as a result the NCR will more likely put great force into countering any attack. However I do not believe they will currently engage us unless we attack first."

Lanius looked at the border between the two rival nations. "Perhaps they could be pushed into war with each other." He mused, surprising Anguis with the more devious thought. Had the man changed? He once despised the very notion of using spies or trickery to help win a war. "What do your spies say about this Confederation?" He asked, spitting out the last word as if it tasted badly. Perhaps bad memories of his battle with the Mojave's new ruler?

"My spies have informed me of much of the military development within the region." He began, overplaying a bit. He only had the one spy, a spy he wasn't sure he could trust really. He had gone silent for a while, only recently giving him very worrying news involving powered armor and nuclear weapons, though with only a vague notion that the source of these weapons was somewhere to the north of Vegas itself. "Their army is smaller than the NCRs but well equipped, with much in the way of old world technology. They make use of robots and great mechanical armors, and retain the ability to use nuclear weapons, as they did just before the battle against our outposts to the west, though the number of such weapons are not known. They also maintain an unknown, but presumed large number of flying machines, like the one they used during the battle of Hoover Dam."

Anguis winced as Lanius' hand clenched into a fist at the memory of that battle. "A difficult opponent." Lanius growled. "Have they any weaknesses?"

"Should the production centers for their robots be found and neutralized, then they would be much weaker." Anguis presumed. "Though the exact location of the facility seems a closely guarded secret. I shall endeavor to find the chink in their armor."

"Good, we must resolve our internal problems first before we can make war again in any case." Lanius decided. Anguis started to feel worried, had Lanius been learning? Was the uncouth barbarian warlord learnt subtlety at some point? If Lanius actually got smart, this could get much more difficult, and dangerous.

"Of course lord, when shall you depart?"

"As soon as the troops can be marshalled. The threat from within must be resolved quickly before it can spread, we must be united to face our enemies." The warlord declared, turning and heading for the door.

"Of course my lord, may Mars smile upon you." He said, bowing as his lord left. And may Pluto greet you, he added in his head.

XXXXX

It had ended up taking a few days of hammering things out but eventually Alaric sent his basic legal code off to the townships for suggestions for revision and eventual ratification. He was willing to listen to objections but didn't think much in the way of changes would be needed, as he'd written it originally as to be inoffensive to the various existing laws and customs of the townships which formed the Confederation. There was still likely a good length of time before they could finally implement it, but at least now the problem was being decided on by the people.

Alaric was within the spire of the Lucky 38 reviewing trade information with the NCR, things had improved since their operation on the border. Few things make a statement of intent quite like an orbital laser cannon.

"So did you think about it?" Cass asked from where she sat on the table.

"Hmm?" Alaric wondered, looking up from his terminal. "About what, again?"

Cass rolled her eyes. "The money idea." She clarified.

He hummed thoughtfully, knowing full well it was what she wanted to talk about. "Minting our own currency?" He mused, leaning back in his chair. "I have thought about it yes."

Cass swished a foot back and forth in the air, slowly tilting her head and giving him a 'well?' look.

"Not yet." He decided with a nod, making her groan.

"Oh come on, why not? Caps are always good but there's a lot of money tied up in NCR dollars around here, I don't like it." She protested. "And making our own money would make us more independent too, not to mention get us a little respect."

Alaric cocked his head with a bemused expression. "Cass, when did you become so astute on major financial issues?"

"Since you put me in charge of all the international trade." Cass sighed, standing up and pacing a little. "Had to do a little reading on how these things work, found some interesting things, like this issue."

Alaric sighed. "Look, Cass, I understand your frustration, and I get the idea, I do. It's just not time yet, I've got a plan, it'll all make sense, promise." He grinned.

Cass crossed her arms. "Nuh-uh. Not this time Alaric, explain. You can't just run away from me on this."

"Actually, yes I can." He said, a cheeky grin spreading over his face as he reached for his belt. Cass just had time to say 'Son of a b-' before he hit the button and blinked out of existence. A fraction of a second later as he arrived at Big MT, he was laughing his ass off.

"Am I missing something?" Asked the elderly man in a lab coat who was waiting at the materialization point.

"Oh, Doctor Henry, sorry just a private joke. I'm not late am I?" He asked, standing up straight and nodding to his old friend from Jacobstown.

"No, not at all." The doctor said, holding up a placating hand. "I'm just eager to get started. Haven't worked in an environment like this for years, all very exciting."

Alaric grinned. He'd been wanting to put Big MT back together as a proper research facility for a while now, and it was finally coming together. He'd put out a call for every science minded citizen to come and apply for a rather cushy job working in a very secure facility, knowing he'd need a lot more than just the Think Tank itself to make meaningful progress. Of course that meant that Big MT's location was no longer the secure national secret it had once been, but better public knowledge and useful than a useless secret. "Nice work with the Nightkin by the way, I hope I wasn't pulling you from anything important?"

"My work there was done." Henry shrugged. Alaric figured that would be the reaction, the scientist lived for the next challenge, the next set of problems to be solved. He had finished his work in Jacobstown and now needed new direction and focus, what better place for him than Big MT?

"How are you finding the facilities?" Alaric asked as they began walking. He'd used the lobotomites and construction robots for as long as he could, cleaning up the area and repairing the various research labs. The lobotomites had all been deactivated and quietly disposed of in a mass grave before anyone else could see them, with all records expunged. Not the most honest solution but he couldn't stand having them around, and they would create very unpleasant questions should their existence ever have come to light.

"Oh it's quite impressive." Henry said gratefully as they walked out onto the blue grass lawn. The place was buzzing with activity like never before, robots, scientists and research assistance moving between buildings. The landscaping was even nicer, the odd blue grass having spread everywhere in a lush carpet, the whole facility felt purposeful and energized. "The data storage has fragmented a little in some places but a lot of the old research data is there, so we've been able to start working on a few projects. The setups here are quite amazing actually."

"Good, good. How are we looking for production?" Alaric asked, smiling a little as he looked around at the place.

"Well, the only real factory setup here is Mobius' facility for building roboscorpions." Henry explained, gesturing off towards Mobius' dome. "Though we do have some fairly advanced chem production capabilities here, so we should have plenty of medical supplies. Everything else is more tuned to producing prototypes in small numbers, but we're getting a Saturnite foundry set up at the mine site, so we should be able to start working on those weapon concepts you requested."

"Excellent. Let's talk about the big projects, eh?" Alaric asked. "First off, power armor development."

Henry sucked a hissing breath through his teeth. "Well, it's a complicated topic. Based on the Enclave research data you had stored in that eyebot of yours, and my own experience, plus the various beneficial technologies we have here, I think we can end up producing something superior to any pre-war design. We've already been kicking some concepts around ever since you said you were interested in this line of development, but I would have a suggestion to save us a lot of development time."

Alaric nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

"We would save a lot of time and effort if we had something to work off of, a baseline if you will. The West Tek research facility is west of here and I think it would be within distance that we could send an expedition. If we could recover the original research data on power armor development from before the war, it would save us months, maybe even years, of research time."

Alaric nodded thoughtfully. "Alright, I'll review the information and plan something up. If I do approve the mission you can be assured I'll put my best people on it."

Henry nodded. "That's very reassuring to hear. I did have another issue to discuss, somewhat related to our power armor concepts, but also more general." Alaric motioned for him to go on. "I mentioned earlier chem production facilities? Well they are quite robust and we can make a fairly wide variety of them. Once we get those vending machines you mentioned before we will be able to make even more, and cheaper." Alaric nodded, following so far. "Back before the war, Big MT worked on an innovative automated medical function for advanced armors. You used their prototype stealth suit, and they were also working on something for power armor as well, administering stimpaks and Med-X when needed. We believe it would be very simple to implement this in our new armor design, but we believe we could go… further."

Alaric raised a brow. "What did you have in mind exactly?"

"There are a lot of chems that this kind of system could administer that are useful beyond simple healing and pain relief. Hydra can get critically injured patients back on their feet in record time, Rebound can keep someone awake and functioning at peak efficiency for hours of constant action, Turbo is incredibly potent as you yourself have experienced with your implants. Even Jet had beneficial properties, a quick burst of focus and energy."

Alaric frowned. "Firstly, my GRX implant doesn't have addictive properties like regular Turbo does, let alone Jet. I've seen what that can do to people doctor, not to mention the potentially disasterous effects of an automated system glitching or administering the wrong dosage or chem."

Henry nodded, holding up his hands defensively. "And this is something I've done a lot of thinking and research on, I think the risks can be mitigated and the benefits amplified to make it well worth it."

Alaric wasn't convinced, but he also considered himself open minded. "Alright, go on."

"First off, Turbo, Jet and Hydra are wasteland products, not the creation of prewar science. Hydra was cooked up by the Legion believe it or not, and Jet is literally made out of the fumes from Brahman shit." He said with a sneer. "Jet in particular was designed for maximum addiction and the shortest possible high. But with our capabilities, not to mention those vending machines of yours, I think it's possible to make much cleaner, safer and beneficial versions of these chems. We can reduce the addictive properties and increase the length of their beneficial effects, and we can have much easier treatment options for those who are addicted. Fixer temporarily removes all negative effects of addiction and thus makes it incredibly easy to go cold turkey, and we have the formula for an intravenous chem called Addictol which purges the user of all chemical addictions within one day, though it's a little less pleasant to use. As for administering the chems, you're quite right, a simple automated system isn't up to the task. But a complex automated system could be. Big MT made great strides with integrating artificial intelligence programs into armor suits as you experienced yourself, and we can do the same with our suits. Expensive to be sure but the benefits are worth it I believe, not only could such a system monitor the users health and administer chems as needed, but assist in all manner of tasks, coordinate communications and information streams, and offer tactical advice that the user might miss in the heat of battle. There are certainly risks but I think the benefits are worth it."

Alaric stroked his chin. The doctor made a convincing argument, and if things worked out the benefits would be most welcome. They were outnumbered by a possible enemy on one side and a certain enemy on the other, with at least one nebulous possible threat on the horizon and who knows what else behind that one? They needed their elite troops to be worth ten of the enemy if their comparatively tiny nation was to survive, even power armor could be swamped by numbers, and they couldn't be everywhere at once. If this kind of system would allow his elite troops to run and fight at peak efficiency for hours on end, it might be enough to tip the scales. "Alright, I'll take it under consideration. Continue your research for now."

Doctor Henry nodded. "Thank you sir. On a related note, once we get our supplies sorted out, I'd like to start distributing Mentats to the research staff. We won't go overboard with the dosage but frankly even the best and brightest you could scrape out of the Mojave aren't exactly the shining stars of their field here. We could use the edge and, as I explained before, once we have those vending machines set up managing and treating addictions won't be much of an issue."

"Wouldn't that mean our research staff would end up like… well… Mobius?" Alaric asked. He liked Mobius, but wouldn't wish his various mental issues on anyone.

"Mobius' condition, and the rest of the Think Tank, is mostly due to his extreme age and the inability of biogel to perfectly preserve the brain for so many centuries on end, not his various addictions. Also he's addicted to a lot more than Mentats believe me. Periodic Addictol detox treatments should prevent any kind of long term issues, and the negative effects of addiction only become evident if your supply runs out, which we shouldn't have a problem with and we'll be sure to have a stock of Fixer for emergencies to ensure we can smoothly kick any dependence if we need to."

Again, a quandary. Alaric never used chems beyond Stimpaks or things to manage radiation, barring what his implants supplied of course. But on the other hand he never felt the need to use them because his implants and mutations already made him superior to most normal humans. He was stronger, faster, tougher and smarter than most any unaltered preson you would meet in the wastes. If he had never been to Big MT and been rebuilt, or been lucky enough to develop so many benign and beneficial mutations, would he have ended up needing a chemical boost to his abilities to do the things he had done? And how many times had he only survived a tough fight because he'd keyed his GRX implant to give him that boost, that unfair advantage. In the end all the implant did was provide a precise and safer method of administering a potentially harmful chem, which was essentially exactly what Doctor Henry was proposing.

"Alright, go ahead with it. But I reserve the right to shut things down immediately if it gets out of hand." He decided, figuring he'd see how things went with a trial run. "You keep mentioning the vending machines, judging by your tone I'm guessing you can't actually get them working?"

"Not yet." Henry admitted. "The research data on them has degraded and there are no actual units left here. However full instructions and data was sent to the Sierra Madre along with the entire existent production line. If they would be recovered…"

Alaric shrugged. "I was going to send a raiding force there anyway, so we'll get you what you need. How is the robotic development coming along?"

"Promising, I have a few concepts for ways to enhance our robotic armies once we get the production issues sorted out, I'll get a report written up as soon as I have something."

They had walked over eventually to the Saturnite smelting facility, which now bore a factory of sorts at the surface. "Coming along nicely." Alaric noted, going in to see various workers and robots tending large machines.

"Yes, Saturnite has many useful properties for weapons development. We considered using it for the plating for power armor but it's not really good for that. It retains heat too well you see, so the energy of incoming bullets gets converted to heat through impact and friction and it gets unbearably hot rather fast. Not to mention if you hit it with energy weapons it starts glowing and burning."

Alaric shuddered, remembering his experience having his power armor's chestplate melted into his chest. "Yes insulation is very important." He said quickly.

Henry nodded. "However it does offer benefits for other mechanical applications, not to mention weapons. We're working with a few different designs and concepts that we think have a lot of potential. As for now… your special order is ready." He said with a grin.

Alaric smiled, walking over to a table with the doctor, a long wooden box sitting on it. He opened the lid, chuckling as he saw what rested on velvet within. "Doctor, it's perfect."

"We try." The old scientist said proudly.

XXXXX

Following the visit to Big MT, Alaric had returned to Vegas, heading through the Outer Vegas ruins to Vault 3, he'd called ahead to Veronica to let her know he was stopping by to discuss the aftermath of The Divide operation. He wore his wasteland coat, and carried the box from Big MT under his arm.

"Halt, and declare yourself." The sentry at the gate said. It wasn't Kruse, obviously, but Alaric was tickled to see the Knights peculiar speech pattern was spreading through the rest of the Brotherhood.

"Alaric of Vegas, I am expected."

The guard nodded. "Proceed."

Overall he was quite impressed with the development the Brotherhood had gone through. The civil war had been punishing and tragic, but ultimately it had resulted in the purging of all the negative beliefs which held them back. Either through the deaths of the old guard, or the proof of the flaws of their beliefs, the Brotherhood had been forced to see reason, and move into the new world he was building. Veronica looked up from her terminal as he entered, smiling.

"Alaric, good to see you. There are some thing I wanted to go over."

He nodded, sitting across from her desk. "Indeed, matters to discuss about The Divide."

"Specifically the loot." She pointed out. "Now the nukes belong to you, as does the base. But you recovered a lot of advanced equipment there as well."

"The power armor." Alaric surmised, he'd expected this might be a point of friction. "And we are keeping it for ourselves. This is a problem?"

Veronica nodded after a moment. "Yes. My Knights led the charge on that base and we lost people. And rebuilding power armor isn't easy or cheap, we paid a toll in blood to get you to that bunker and I'd like for my people to have something to show for it. I'm considering opening recruitment to Mojave citizens and we're going to need equipment to fill out new ranks and replace old suits that we just can't fix anymore."

Alaric raised a brow. "Open recruitment? Interesting idea, what prompted it? Not that I'm against it of course, just wondering."

Veronica sighed. "Well, there's still a lot of mistrust among the Mojave's people. You've been nothing but accommodating and your troops seem pretty agreeable, but it wasn't very long ago Brotherhood forces nearly destroyed this nation. Opening up recruitment helps us get stronger, but it also demystifies us a little. And it will let people see we're not just a bunch of self-centered isolationists anymore, we're a part of this land and its people, and willing to defend it."

Alaric grinned approvingly. "I like it. As for your supplies, I need that armor right now. There are plenty of weapons fit for your Knights that I can spare, the shoulder mounted miniguns, M2 HMGs, rocket launchers and so forth. And I've already been donating some weapons like the K9000's from Big MT. How about this? I need those suits right now, all 200, to get the first generation of my Shocktrooper Corps some firsthand experience, and then we're going to start making more suits. Once we start making new power armor, you let me build up a decent force say… six hundred total power armored troopers, then we'll phase the T-57's out and replace them with new suits, and you get them free of charge."

Veronica steepled her fingers, leaning back and forth a little. "And if any suits are destroyed before you can donate them?"

"Then we'll replace them pro bono with whatever suits we end up building. One way or another you get two hundred suits." He finished, having already planned for this possibility.

She pursed her lips, thinking. "Deal. How is that power armor thing coming along then?"

"Well enough." He shrugged. "I'm going to need a strike on the Sierra Madre first though. Get our hands on that molecular fabrication tech. Which I am willing to share freely." He said firmly, in case she was wondering.

"So we get to be your leading edge again?" Veronica asked, cocking her head.

"Along with my new Shocktroopers. Your Knights have the experience they need to learn from. And…" He sighed, tapping his fingers. "Christine is there." He added.

Veronica was silent for a long moment. "Christine… why… why didn't you tell me before?"

He sighed, shaking his head. "Wasn't time, things happen fast. She's safe though, secure and protected, waiting for us. She wanted to stay behind and act as a guardian in that hellhole. I think it's time we went and relieved her of that duty. And… I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner Veronica, but I needed you on point for all this, not worrying about her. I've kept in radio contact with her, she's doing well."

She still looked shaken by the sudden revelation, but nodded. "I'll have Kruse ready to go as soon as possible."

Alaric grinned, drumming his fingers. "About Kruse actually, I wanted to discuss something with you."  
He put a holotape on the table, pushing it over. "I had an idea for a new program of sorts. You were talking about instilling the Brotherhood with a new spirit of cooperation, improve your reputation with the average citizens? I think I have a solution."

She raised a brow, putting the tape in her terminal and reading through. "This is… this is actually a really good idea." She said, starting to nod along as she read through his suggested plans. "This could work, and I think he's perfect for it."

Alaric grinned. "Yes, and as for your supply issues, I have something you might like to see." He chuckled, putting the large box on her desk and opening it.

Veronica's eyes widened a little as she looked at the shining contents of the elegant box. "You are willing to supply us with these?"

"Those, and others similar, we're trying out various designs, but they should be very effective. Should help to tide you over a little until you get your new power armor."

The Elder of the Mojave laughed. "Oh it'll be most welcome, and I'm sure Kruse will be delighted."

XXXXX

Knight Command Kruse had spent days recovering, first at a field hospital rapidly set up in The Divide and after that within a longer term recovery ward in Vault 3. Thanks to some expert care and the nigh miraculous healing power of Hydra, not to mention his own stubborn insistence on getting better, he was discharged with a clean bill of health soon enough. He was still getting used to his new uniform, but it was quite comfortable. Actually a modified Vault Suit run off the automated production machine in the Vault, it was dark grey rather than blue, and it bore the new emblem of the Mojave Brotherhood. The sword and gears were the same, but instead of being contained within a winged circle, they were inside the hollow outline of the Mojave's iconic 'Ace of Spades' symbol. He greatly approved of the image, showing that the Brotherhood's soul was still the same, but now they were a part of a new and greater whole, the emblem proudly rampant on his back and a smaller one on the left breast of every new uniform, and painted upon their armor.

A lot had changed since their alliance with the Mojave Confederation, and he had to say it had changed for the better. Their new base of operations was quite comfortable and better for long term habitation and self-sufficiency, and they moved in the open with the respect of the common people, rather than skulking on the edges of society and met with apprehension or hostility. His brothers and sisters were more eager and in higher spirits than ever, and their opinion of the outsiders of the Mojave had improved as they worked and fought together. There was even talk of open recruitment, once unthinkable, but Kruse himself welcomed the idea knowing it would bring fresh strength to the depleted chapter.

Things were looking up it seemed, and he had high hopes, great deeds awaited their future and no matter how strong the Confederation as a whole became, Kruse knew that the Knights of Steel would always be needed in this dangerous world. The warrior was drawn out of his reverie by an approaching scribe, also in his new uniform, who bowed respectfully. "Knight Commander, you are recovered?"

He nodded, pushing out his powerful chest. "Indeed scribe, fit and ready for duty. What's this about?"

The scribe grinned. "If you could please follow me, your presence is requested by the Elder."

Kruse raised a brow curiously, but it seemed the scribe wasn't going to tell him what exactly was going on, so he motioned the man to lead on. His frown of confusion deepened as they went not down to the Elder's office, but up to the entry way and out into the ruins of Outer Vegas. Eventually the scribe turned to him, holding out a scrap of cloth. "You must be blindfolded." He said simply.

Kruse frowned, hesitating for a moment, but he reached out and took the cloth, covering his eyes, the scribe leading him down the road. He wasn't concerned, the Outer Vegas ruins were very secure these days, where once they had been overrun by Fiends now they were quiet and safe, patrolled by bother Brotherhood Knights and Mojave soldiers. But this was all very strange.

"We have arrived." The scribe said eventually, removing his blindfold and stepping away. Kruse opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but his voice failed him.

They stood before a stairwell leading up to a platform, the concrete fresh and unblemished. Ceremonial torches burned at intervals up the stairs, giving flickering light to the early evening scene and lending it the air of ritual. He was not alone either, the scribe had stepped back respectfully, but there were others there as well. Six Knights in full power armor stood guard up the stairs, three on each side. They held their super sledges in both hands, the long hafts resting on the floor, standing as still as statues. Elder Veronica stood in full robes at the top of the staircase, and looming next to her was Lord Alaric in his iconic black power armor. Next to them stood another armored figure, head bowed and unmoving.

"Knight Kruse, step forward." The lord of Vegas intoned, gesturing.

He gulped quietly, stepping forward to the base of the staircase, stopping as the first pair of guards crossed their hammers in the air before him.

"You have shown great courage and skill in battle. Your brothers and sisters in Steel look to you as an icon of all we are meant to be. A righteous sword and a guarding shield. Why? Why do you drive yourself so? The people of this parched wasteland have given your brothers nothing but resentment, nothing but hostility. Why show them such kindness, why throw yourself into the jaws of a beast for those who are not your brothers?"

Kruse thought for a moment before he found his tongue again. "Their lives matter, they may not be brothers in Steel but that does not mean they do not deserve to be protected. They deserve more than that."

"Why?" demanded the other of the first guards. "They did not swear oaths to your creed, they are wastelanders, savages, if a few of them die what of it? Their lives are small things compared to the fate of the world we must rebuild."

Kruse frowned. "Their lives are the world we must rebuild!" He countered. "All the technologies and power of the world mean nothing without the people to live and benefit by them. We forgot who we were fighting on behalf of, and whose future we were trying to build."

"We did not believe this in the past." Said one guard sternly.

"Then we must be better." Kruse growled. The Knights were silent for a moment, before they lifted their hammers to let him pass.

"The first challenge is met." They intoned as one.

Starting to get an idea what was happening, Kruse held himself high and walked forward. As he expected, the next pair of knights crossed their hammers before him.

"In the Divide, you threw yourself into the enemy time and time again." The one on the right said, her helmet impassive. "You met all manner of beasts with gun and hammer, and with each battle you were a hero. You threw yourself into battle again and again, fighting the greatest of champions alone, and the glory was yours. You were a great hero that day Knight, you must relish the glory that you earned. Upon that battlefield."

Kruse frowned, congratulations? He had expected another challenge. "The glory is… acceptable, I did not seek it. I did what had to be done."

"Come now." Said the other, a man. "You fought bravely, you should rejoice in your victory, for you proved yourself the greatest the Brotherhood had to offer. You won the glory of victory fairly and honestly, should not all hail you as their champion, as you must have intended?"

Kruse shook his head firmly. "No, I may have won glory that day, but I would do it again in darkness and ridicule a hundred times, I would never have done that for simple recognition."

The female on the right shook her head. "Why then did you fight? What purpose is glorious battle and heroic deeds if not to be celebrated by your peers? Is it so wrong to crave recognition for what you have done?"

"No, I fought not for glory, but for honor." Kruse said firmly. "Honor comes from within my own heart, not from outside. I would fight alone and die unremembered if the battle be in just cause and never once think of it! It is what must be done."

A moment of silence, and then. "The second challenge is met." And the way was open.

Again, the final pair closed ranks before him, and he waited for their challenge.

"You nearly died in The Divide." Said the guard on the left. "Were it not for the aid of another, you could have bled out on that battlefield after you slew the great Deathclaw. Why are you so eager to return to fight again, perhaps this time you will not be so lucky? Your station and rank would allow you much easier duty within the base, planning and commanding. That is where you should be, not charging blindly at whatever new enemy challenges you."

Kruse paused, considering the challenge. "I do not disparage those who lead from behind the lines, and who offer their wisdom to others. But that is not the place for me, I would not desire it."

The other shook his head. "Knight, you have proven yourself valuable and skilled. Why do you risk yourself so needlessly? Do you want to die in a glorious crescendo, rather than face one day the straw death in bed? Or perhaps you simply do not understand how valuable you are, your skills could teach and prepare the next generation, your experience guide and give direction."

"I am not for that." Kruse declared, shaking his head once. "Battle is where I thrive, I do not desire the comforts of rank or the wealth of age. In battle I was forged and in battle I will serve until I can serve there no longer."

"Are you so eager to throw your life away?" The first guard asked pointedly. "You could retire, find a different life, leave such things to the next man, and the next. Why does it have to be your burden to bear? Haven't you fought enough? Seen enough death? Heard enough screams of wounded men? This burden does not have to weigh your soul any longer, just let it go."

Kruse held his head high. "That is not the life I wish. I am sword and shield, the bane of the evil and the defender of the righteous, and I shall continue to fight for truth and goodness for as long as there is strength in my arms."

"The third challenge is met." The guards intoned, and stood apart, leaving him clear to join the final three figures on the platform.

He raised a brow, seeing the still figure was an empty suit of power armor, waiting for its occupant. He had heard of the design, T-60, but he didn't know there were any models with their chapter.

"Knight, don your new armor." Elder Veronica said, gesturing. Surprised, but not letting it show, Kruse opened the armor and climbed inside, the hissing pressure seals closing around him, the suit humming with power as he tested the hands, it was in great condition. "Knight, our Brotherhood has stepped into a wider world. And while our mission will remain the preservation of knowledge, our order must change with the times. We have already shared the bounty of our technology with our new fellows. But we must do more, we must protect them from the dangers of this world, so that we can all grow stronger. The people of this land need Knights to fight in their name, to face the horrors of the wasteland not because they were ordered to do it, not because they must, but simple because it is right. The task will not be easy, or kind. It will ask much of you, even perhaps your life. You will never know the comforts of high rank, nor stability, nor peace. You will be the first of a new order of Knights, sworn to defend the people of this land above all other concerns. Do you desire this?"

When Kruse spoke, his voice was choked with emotion. "With all my heart." He managed to say.

"Then kneel." Alaric spoke, his voice an electronic growl through his helmet.

Kruse's armored knee thudded against concrete as he knelt before the black armored lord. Alaric reached over to a table next to him, opening a long wooden box, and drawing out its contents. Kruse's heart caught in his throat as he saw the most beautiful sword he could ever have imagined.

The blade seemed like it was made of silver, shining and pure. No, silver wasn't right, it wasn't descriptive enough. He wracked his memory for something worthy of this blade. It was like… moonlight reflected in still waters, pure and radiant. The sword was enormous, a two handed broadsword, or perhaps a very large bastard sword. It would be a feat for a normal man to even lift such a blade and it was obviously intended to be wielded with power armor. The crossguard was broad and made of the same radiant metal, and the pommel was heavy and large. Alaric hit a small activation stud on the handle, and with a hum the blade began to glow, becoming red hot. The fuller down the middle of the blade glowed electric blue instead, like a lightning bolt amidst flames.

"Look not to me, Knight." Alaric intoned, pointing out to the expanse of wasteland with the glowing blade. "Look to the wasteland. For it is upon the wasteland that you swear this oath. This wasted soil, these bloodied stones, and all the people who live and walk within this land. Until this parched soil runs verdant and lush with new life, until these people live lives of such peace that the battles we fight are not but myth and fable. You must swear upon this wasteland to fight in the defense of its people, and for their children, and their children. When you perish in this task, it will fall to the next Knight, and the next after that, until the task is done. Do you swear to fight on unending against all the horrors of this world, to stand as bulwark against whatever evil may arise, to ever pursue the forces of evil no matter where they hide?"

"I swear." Kruse intoned.

"Do you swear to fight on, undaunted by the injuries you sustain, the miles you walk, or the years that weigh upon you, to battle on until you lack the strength to lift your sword in this cause?"

"I swear."

"Do you swear to fight with honor and courage for every day of your life from this night hence? To show valor and courage in the darkest and most remote of places? To one day die alone, forgotten and unremembered in a place far from home? To fight for this cause without reward or recognition?"

"I swear."

All was silent for a long moment. "Then by the war unending of this broken world, I anoint thee in the wasteland we will one day make whole." He said, reaching out to pour a handful of parched soil over his armor. "And by the promise of this sword, do I knight thee Sir Kruse, Knight of the Realm." He said solemnly, touching the glowing blade gently to each pauldron in turn. "First named and commander, of the Knights Errant. Rise, Knight, and take your sword."

Kruse was thankful for the stability his armor gave him, lest his trembling limbs might show. He stood, taking the offered hilt, the leather gripped in the armored gauntlets of his armor as he raised the burning blade high. The six guards on the stairway were looking up to him. "Let this sword be as a beacon in the endless night." Kruse intoned, his voice humble and introspective. "Let it light the way for all the desperate and hopeless in this wasted world, and be the spark that kindles the flames of hope wherever it is seen."

The guards pounded the hafts of their hammers on the concrete in approval.

"Well said." Alaric said, the ceremony feeling over now as the sovereign of New Vegas clasped him on the shoulder.

"Thank you Lord." Kruse breathed, his voice shaking. "This is… all I have ever desired in my life. This armor, this sword…"

"Made specially for you." Alaric chuckled. "The sword at least, the armor we found at a checkpoint in The Divide, figured you deserved it as that fight cost you your last armor.

Kruse nodded, looking to his gauntlet, clenching it in a fist. "I'll have to make some modifications, of course…"

XXXXX

"So let me get this straight." Royce said as he checked over his gear. "We have to get to The Glow, get the research data, and get out, right?"

"Correct." Chase confirmed, pulling his coat on over his body armor.

"The Glow is roughly two hundred miles south-southeast of here." Royce continued, checking his rifle again.

"Again, correct." Chase nodded, checking his leather ammo rig.

"Through the middle of NCR territory, after we signed a treaty that forbids military action across their borders?" The sniper continued, hands on his hips.

"That's about it, yes." The Stalker nodded, looking to his companion. "It's our mission, we've got to get it done."

Royce frowned. "I don't like it, breaking our agreement so soon after we signed it, what if we're caught out there?"

Tony walked over, getting his gear set as well. "Royce, this is why M-SOC exists, plausible deniability, covert operations. We've got nothing on us to identify ourselves, if we're interrogated then we're just a bunch of treasure hunters looking for the legendary Glow. Besides it's not like the locals are using it."

"Yeah, because it's radioactive!" Royce protested loudly. "Enough to make your bones glow."

"We've got suits and chems to deal with that." Sawbones reminded him, Five Card grumbling in the background as he hefted a heavy pack on top of his already weighty LMG.

"Alright, no use standing around yacking, best we get moving." Chase decided, nodding to the door, and soon enough they were walking off down the road towards their southern border.

As they walked through the Outer Vegas Ruins, Chase had to wonder how long they would keep referring to this area as 'Ruins' at all. People were moving out here, from outlying settlements, even from outside the Confederation's borders. There were no more marauding raiders or dangerous monsters lurking in the concrete heaps, some of the old industrial buildings were being scouted for refurbishment and repair. Vegas was reclaiming its lost territory, left cold since the Great War. Chase listened to the news, one by one the old mines were being reopened after the Legion's invasion had closed them. Iron, salt, quarried stone and more. Vault 34 was the only true factory in the Confederation's heartland, but how long would it hold that title? And there was something odd about the commanders lately, a certain tension, expectant, as if something very big was going down soon. He'd heard of the formation of a new branch of the military, Shocktroopers, and some mission to an abandoned resort town, maybe that was it.

He shook his head, not sure what to make of it all. It was still strange seeing this kind of massive development, the logistical scale things happened on. Dozens to hundreds of people working on a complex goal. He'd kept up on the news from Bullhead, things had improved nicely down there. The people were moving slowly out of the tunnels in some places to find new homes on the surface. The Vault they had discovered had become the new capital of what was looking to be the largest single township outside of New Vegas itself, with the various stations eventually deciding to unify into one overall settlement rather than join piecemeal. The exodus of Stalkers to the rest of the Confederation and those moving topside meant the tunnels were more empty than ever before, with more space for everyone to live. From what he could tell, many businesses were being set up on the surface, but many still wanted to sleep in the safety and familiarity of the tunnels, so it was working out nicely. If he got leave soon he'd like to go visit, but with how things were going he wasn't sure when that would be.

In the end though he knew his viewpoint was limited, he was just a man with a gun doing his job. And right now that job was putting the capability to produce powered armor into the hands of his nation. It was a big responsibility, and potentially an international incident if things went wrong, but if they were able to pull this off then they would be giving the Confederation a serious advantage over its enemies. Still, despite how he dealt with Royce he did have his misgivings about this mission, they were after all conducting a covert mission into NCR territory, not far from L.A. itself, so things could get sticky if not handled properly. But he supposed the reward would be worth the risk if they could pull it off.

His mind more troubled than his stoic expression would allow him to show, Chase marched off down the highway towards the Mojave Outpost and whatever might await him and his companions at the end of the long road.

XXXXX

Alaric looked out over his assembled troops. The elite of his armed forces, at least those not taken into the Commandoes. But these men and women showed a different skillset, their task would call for less subtlety, more action. At least those who were human and ghouls, there were a good number of super mutants present as well. The Shocktrooper Corps was his other elite unit, newly formed and with one job only, to be the tip of the spear driven into the enemy. The most destructive and brute force powerful heavy infantry unit he could deploy to the front lines. Power armored humans and armored super mutants could shrug off punishment which would mortally injure a normal human and could maintain an operational tempo none else could. And this was just the initial version, the first iteration. When he was able to equip them as he hoped he could, with superior power armor, chem injection technology and even better weapons on a grander scale, then they would be a force to reshape the map of the wasteland. Until then, they would have to learn to walk before they could run.

"Your mission is simple in concept." He began, looking out over the briefing area. "You are to go to the Sierra Madre casino, and secure it. You are to hunt down the Ghost People which infest the casino and the surrounding town and exterminate them to the last. You are to clear the path for technical specialists to secure the advanced technology which that location holds, and allow them to deactivate the poisonous Cloud which spews from the depths of the Sierra Madre itself. The Ghost People are fiercely territorial and very dangerous, and the Sierra Madre is a very hazardous environment, the toxic atmosphere could degrade your equipment, and there are many traps and explosives left behind, besides that the Ghost People themselves are very dangerous."

A hand came up, and Alaric gestured for the Shocktrooper to speak.

"Aren't they equipped with knives and spears? How is that a danger to our power armor?" The man asked.

Alaric nodded. "I was getting to that. While they are equipped with kitchen knives and makeshift spears, they also possess a number of makeshift but very potent explosives. Furthermore those knives are made from Saturnite." There was some grumbling at this. "Which means they are incredibly sharp and nigh unbreakable, and with the Ghost People's strength they will cut through your armor on a solid hit. You take one of these to the neck and you are dead, never forget that. Furthermore the Ghost People have an almost impossible degree of durability, getting up to fight after what should be mortal wounds, only severe dismemberment, decapitation or complete destruction will put them down for more than a few seconds. So, overkill is the rule of the day. This also means that melee combat against them is a very viable option, as your close combat weapons are more likely to produce the kind of dismemberment which is needed to really put an end to these monsters. They are also clever, these are not dumb feral ghouls you can expect to act predictably, they know the terrain and are ready to defend it. They will move in coordinated swarms and seem to have no fear of pain or death. They will fight to the bitter end against our invasion and their full numbers are unknown. All I know is that when I was there, they seemed without limit." Alaric suppressed a shiver as he remembered the inhuman wailing call the great horde of Ghost People let out when he disturbed them with the Gala Event. That chorus of voices ringing off every wall and from all directions, making an ululating cry no human throat should have made.

"You will not be completely alone." He continued. "You will be working in concert with a unit of Brotherhood of Steel knights, but make no mistake this is a Confederation operation, they are here to assist only. Still, they have been fighting in power armor for a lot longer than any of you, so respect what they have to offer in terms of their help and their experience. You're going to need all the help you can get to secure the Sierra Madre."

The briefing continued for a little while longer, answering questions and going over the frankly basic plan. Thanks to Big MT they had a prewar map of the entire facility including the underground tunnels the Ghost People most likely made their homes in. But there was no way to predict damage or new tunnels being dug. They also knew the source of The Cloud deep inside the machines of the casino so they thought they could shut it down given the chance. Eventually he walked off the podium and backstage, finding Boone waiting for him.

"They seem ready, as ready as I can make them." Alaric decided, pouring some water. Boone remained silent, just looking at him. The sovereign of Vegas looked over at his general. "You're giving me that look Boone, the one that makes me feel like a mouse in the shadow of a hawk."

Boone took a deep breath before speaking. "You're going out again, aren't you?"

"What, to the Madre? Yeah." Alaric shrugged.

"You shouldn't." Boone said simply.

It took a moment for Alaric to process that. "Boone, I'm the only one going who knows the terrain, and you know I'm the best fighter we've got. They need me there."

"Yes." Boone said bluntly, standing up. "I'm the best, they need me. That is what you said last time you had to go into combat, and the time before that. That is what you always say, and what you will always say. But you can't, not anymore." He walked over, taking off his shades to look Alaric in the eye. "Because you may be the best fighter we have, but you're also the only leader we have. There is no backup plan if you die, no successor. You are the Confederation's government, without you, everything falls apart. So I am telling you that you can't go. You have responsibilities, you are more important than an axe hand on the field."

Alaric held his friend's gaze for a long uncomfortable moment before he sighed and looked away. "Yes… you're right. I know. I'm just… not used to this, letting others go when I'm not. It's easier to be at the tip of the spear rather than sitting back and watching them go. I want to go but… you're right my friend, as you often are." Alaric sighed heavily, leaning against a doorframe and shaking his head. "When did I become a politician? How could I let that happen to me Boone? I want to feel wasteland dirt under my feet, the horizon calling my name." He slid down, sitting in a chair.

Boone walked over and sat beside him. "I know, I went through this when you made me your general. I still wish I was just a sniper, with nothing but my scope and a spotter to worry about. Now I'm in command of an entire army. So many lives under my responsibility. But you have to learn that too, you're very important to a lot of people now, and unlike those troops out there we can't replace you."

Alaric sighed, nodding. "Yes, I understand. Still, not easy." He cocked his head a little, chuckling. "At least they've got Kruse with them, that should count for something."

===Author's Note===

Well I've got no excuse really, sorry for the wait everybody. Real life and my own changing interests made me delay a bit too long. I can only really write this story when I'm on a Fallout kick, but I've got my poker chips spread in front of me and the game full of new mods to inspire and excite my imagination, so hopefully there won't be another huge dry spell this time.


End file.
